


Republic

by eldritcher



Series: A Four Chord Carousel [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Adventure, Culture, Love, M/M, Philosophy, Politics, Sex, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-24
Updated: 2016-12-28
Packaged: 2018-08-17 00:31:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 34,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8123602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eldritcher/pseuds/eldritcher
Summary: Voldemort runs a puppet republic, Dumbledore's so done, and Harry frets about the late, great Augustus.(or Cornelius Fudge pulls a right-wing, populist government and screws everyone over.)





	1. Atlantis

“Fudge’s Muggle thing is getting out of hand,” Ron commented, halfway through breakfast, slurping down his pumpkin juice with relish that made Harry wonder if it had been spiked somehow, despite Hermione’s eagle eye. 

“Why do you say so?” Harry asked. 

Ron’s face was hidden by the newspaper he held up to read. On the front page, in blaring, bold letters, was the headline, “Fudge will make the wizarding world great again!” 

Below was an image of Fudge, with a ferocious facial expression, decked with a bowler hat and a lime-green suit, with his right hand fisted and raised, and his left hand held to his chest solemnly. Harry blinked. Oh, there was an election coming up soon. Fudge was in the running against Amelia Bones. 

He was not privy to the Ministry grapevine. He worked there but was content to be oblivious to their office politics and gossip. It suited him well to be where he was, cooped below the main floors, working in his little office, helping inventors file patent applications. Ron was an Auror, as was Hermione, and they moved in circles ripe with news and scandal. 

Harry was perfectly happy to hear all of it second-hand, on a Saturday like this one, where he ate breakfast with Ron, while Hermione slept in. His studio adjoined theirs, and they often took their meals together whenever they had the time to spare. Ron and Hermione would give him the juiciest snippets of news, and he would regale them with tales of reclusive inventors who had gone utterly bonkers. 

“Did you hear about the revisions to the History of Magic curriculum that he is demanding?” Ron asked. “Dumbledore isn’t happy about it. With good reason, I say! Why would you want to teach kids about the gory things wizards did to Muggles centuries ago and got away with?”

“Pure blood propaganda?” Harry asked, alarmed. 

They had borne enough of that in their times. Voldemort had relocated to the Continent, according to Dumbledore, preferring to install puppets of his own in the governments in France and Germany, instead of waging a long war against the Order and the Ministry both in Britain. His strongest supporters had left the country too, from what the spies reported. Their ranks had been reorganized, and then closed, and rarely anyone had even seen Voldemort in the past few years. The Unspeakables and the Aurors discussed how Voldemort had managed to build a power-base on the Continent, how he was comfortable there, how he was unlikely to return. Muggle-Wizard segregation had become commonplace in Europe. Their wizarding communities had turned exclusive over the years, and entry was allowed only with a severing of the ties with the Muggle world. There was still trade with Britain, and commerce seemed unaffected, but Hermione noted often that the Ministry representatives were brainwashed fools who parroted faithfully whatever fearful Anti-Muggle sentiments had been instilled in them. All in all, Voldemort’s propaganda had turned to a reality, after a fashion, in those countries. 

Harry knew it was not over, though. He knew Voldemort would cross the Channel to come home one day, to take Hogwarts. Dumbledore expected Voldemort to be calculating and cautious. Dumbledore was right, Harry guessed. There was something else driving Voldemort though, something purely emotional and irrational, in his obsession with the Castle. Harry still woke up sweating from dreams that had been surreal and heavy with a magic he knew well, a magic that he carried still in his scar, a magic that was wound to his wand. At times, intense homesickness and rage seized him whole even if all he had been doing was explaining how to fill the sixtieth patent form to a bubbly young witch. 

Now, hearing about Ron’s opinion on Fudge’s attempt to highlight wizards’ superiority over Muggles, in bygone historical times, Harry wondered if Voldemort was attempting to stage a return.

“I don’t think this is anything malicious,” Ron commented. “This is just Fudge being stupid, trying to get votes, trying to cash in on the popularity he will get by saying baloney like this, because the majority of wizards out there aren’t us, Harry. They are struggling to make a living and their communes are getting smaller and smaller because of the Muggles expanding and becoming more technologically advanced.” 

—-

When Harry stepped into Dumbledore’s office, the portraits of old Headmasters and Headmistresses smiled and waved at him. He smiled back and went to his usual, cosy chair by the fireplace. There was yarn and a half-knit orange sock on the chair across his own. He grinned when he saw a snitch fluttering on the knit. Oh, there was no surprise for his Christmas gift from Dumbledore then! 

Once, he had asked the Headmaster why he gave socks for Christmas, every year.

“I knit them through the year, Harry,” Dumbledore had replied. “They are not Christmas gifts. They are gifts ready at Christmas, knit over the year, each weave holding my thoughts about the recipient all along.” 

There was profoundness in everything Dumbledore did. Harry had not realised until then that there was love too. Dumbledore loved them, enough to spend what little time he had to knit socks for them. 

“Ah, Harry!” Dumbledore said cheerfully then, entering the room, brightening up the place and Harry’s mind both with his smile and voice. 

“So many of my clients reference your patents in their own,” Harry commented. “You don’t know how popular your patented spell to transfer your acne to your brother is.”

“Ah, that was one of my favourites, though Aberforth did not agree.” 

They chatted about their week. It had become a routine over the years, after Harry had left Hogwarts. He had found himself, after a few weeks of his graduation, untethered and ungrounded, though he had Ron and Hermione. So he had made his way back to the school, and Dumbledore had been there at the gates, standing with an expectant, pleased look on his gnarly face. So Harry visited once every Saturday night, and Dumbledore received him in his office, and they grew closer over the years. Dumbledore was not a talkative man, but there were rare winter nights, when Harry sat in his chair sipping Firewhiskey, his feet warmed by Dumbledore’s socks, when Dumbledore would reminisce about a fragment or two of his long life. Harry held those moments close to his heart, and did not speak of them even with Ron and Hermione. More often than not, it was Harry speaking, about the shenanigans in the patent office, about his old class-mates, about the Weasleys, about whatever gossip he had heard from Ron or Hermione. Dumbledore would chip in with a dash of Hogwarts gossip. 

Harry had not found anything fascinating about Snape, and had held only a mixture of rage and pity for the man, until he had heard Dumbledore speaking about Snape’s attempts to procure manticore venom, about Snape’s attempts to cajole Hagrid into getting him a dragon tail or two, about Snape’s attempts to spike Flitwick’s pumpkin-juice to get even with him for winning the Quidditch Cup. 

He had always liked and respected Minerva McGonagall, but he held newfound admiration for her after Dumbledore had spoken of her courage and resolute loyalty during the first war with Voldemort, and before that, when Dumbledore had fought Grindelwald. 

“There is always more to someone than what you see first,” Harry murmured, thinking about Hermione and Ron, and about how Hermione could be short-sighted, but Ron was cool-headed and far-sighted. 

“Perhaps,” Dumbledore said lightly. “I wish I could find more in our dear Minister.” 

There was a wind rattling the against the ramparts of the castle. Harry snuggled back into his armchair and thought about Fudge, about what Ron had said. There was a sadness to the Castle that night, touching his bones, touching something deep within him, and his scar felt heavy.

“I feel him here the strongest,” he said quietly, knowing that Dumbledore would know what Harry feared about Fudge’s recent attempts to make the wizarding world great again. 

“He has in him the blood that built Hogwarts,” Dumbledore said, looking at Harry gently, his eyes lingering on the scar. “However, there could be a stronger reason. He loves the Castle, in as much as he is capable of love.” He shook his head, before continuing, “I feel him too. There is yearning in the stones and the land, a yearning to be touched by the same magic again. Did you know, Harry, that Hogwarts was at its strongest magical strength during the years of his education here? Even Nurmengard, when in it dwelt Grindelwald at the height of his powers, had not been as strong. Magic is difficult to explain, Harry. I think you sensing his presence here may have more to do with how much he thinks of Hogwarts versus the fact that he carries in him the blood of two Founders.” 

Two Founders. Harry’s blood, Gryffindor’s blood, flowed in Voldemort too, forcibly taken. Harry looked at the display case, where beside the Hat was an ancient sword. 

“Do you think Fudge is a puppet for him?” 

“One cannot discount it,” Dumbledore allowed. “I doubt it myself, if only because the nature of those who will be persuaded by Cornelius’s rhetoric hardly constitute the base of support that Voldemort has wooed traditionally. His supporters have been those with a hunger for power, those with old money, or those who considered themselves a part of an anti-establishment intelligentsia.”

Put it that way, it sounded a lot like the early Communists in Russia, or the first groups that had fomented and led the way to the French Revolution. Harry shuddered, remembering the bloodshed and the generations that had been ruined. Those groups, he was fairly sure, had no idea what their noble ideals were going to unleash upon the very people whose lot they had wanted to improve. 

“This does not have Voldemort’s mark on it. Muggle technology has been rapidly advancing. Their cities have become denser and denser, their occupations require highly skilled workers and many workers are being replaced with computers.” Dumbledore took a sip of his Firewhiskey and sighed. “Impressive, really! However, think of those who have straddled the two worlds all their lives, Harry. There are many who did not find cushy Ministry jobs, or become entrepreneurs. And there are many Squibs. They had to find jobs in the Muggle world. For better or worse, there have always been more jobs in the Muggle world. Now, though, now with no certifications to their name and no highly specialised skills to mark them for white-collar jobs, they are facing a crisis, economically and emotionally. They feel undervalued, underpaid, cast out by our society. They are the majority. For years, for centuries, we have been taught that the Muggle world is easier to make a living in, and now this principle has been overturned, rendering many thousands of wizards without a stable livelihood. Cornelius is trying to win their votes. This is politics, Harry. Unfortunately, Cornelius has chosen a highly sensitive topic to campaign about. He will win, I am sure. What will happen once he does? What of his promises to make our world great again? He has incited a festering atmosphere of discontent and resentment, and I fear that he has not thought of the possible consequences. He cannot increase the taxation rates, not while we are in the middle of a recession. He cannot make Britain a welfare state, not when the Wizengamot and the Ministry bureaucracy are still manned by men and women from old families that hold little in the way of liberal or socialist values.” 

Yes, Ron believed in hard work. He believed in helping his family and friends as best as he could. He did not believe in dole-outs, as he patronisingly referred to the Muggle welfare system that Hermione and Harry had tried to explain many times in their discussions. 

“I guess it is just politics,” Harry said, trying to not fret over it, wanting Dumbledore to worry less. “It will be forgotten once the election is over. Nobody takes politicians seriously, anyway, do they?”

“I hope you are right, Harry.” 

—-

Harry voted in the election. It was the first time he was voting. At the polling booths, waiting with Ron and Hermione for his turn, he counted the number of people who sported wrist-bands or hats supporting Fudge, and those who supported Amelia. 

“I guess only three votes from this district will be Amelia’s,” Ron commented grumpily. 

“More voters come in the afternoon,” Hermione said, reassuring. She had canvassed for Amelia Bones. She was optimistic about their chances. After all, she had asked Harry many times, why would anyone sane support Fudge over Amelia? 

Besides, Hermione said, and Ron concurred, there was the open letter that Dumbledore had written to the Daily Prophet, which had been published in the Sunday edition, which had elicited a great deal of discussion, and it had given a popularity boost to Amelia Bones. Dumbledore had written eloquently and passionately about Atlantis, about how hubris had led to the fall of a great city, never to rise again. 

Harry had written to Dumbledore to congratulate him on the tide-turning article, but Dumbledore had only replied cryptically, saying that in a land of blind men a one-eyed man would be king. Harry felt pessimistic about Amelia’s chances, but he hoped, still. 

—— 

Fudge won by a huge margin, in all the voting districts. There were celebrations everywhere. Harry read in the newspapers that the celebrations eclipsed even those that had happened when Voldemort had fallen in Godric’s Hollow. 

He was chopping carrots for his dinner, when the radio broadcasted Fudge’s victory speech, and he cut his finger on the sharp knife when he heard Fudge yell, “I will make us great again! I will make the Muggles see what we are! I will dissolve our borders! They will be held in awe by our marvels, by our magic, by us!” 

“What if they are antagonistic?” Rita’s sickly-sweet voice then crackled on the radio. 

“Now, now!” Fudge said patronisingly. “What does history teach us? What does history have to tell us about each time the Muggles were antagonistic towards our kind?” 

Harry walked to the sink, and held his bleeding finger under the tap water.

——


	2. The Divided Line

“Amagio will keep you low-profile when you stalk Muggle clubs!” Rumpus Odiefoot said exuberantly.

On most days, Rumpus, thirty-five and living alone in his little shack in the North of Scotland, was one of Harry’s favourite inventors. Rumpus came with odd, silly inventions, that he could patent only because nobody else would have even imagined the need for such a creation. The auto-fleecer to shear sheep was Harry’s favourite. 

Now Harry took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose tiredly, before sighing and turning his attention to the potion Rumpus was trying to patent. Amagio. To suppress a wizard’s magic completely. 

“It is made from dandelions,” Harry said incredulously. Granted, his knowledge of Potions was sketchy, but even he knew that dandelions had little to do with powerful potions.

Rumpus launched into a long lecture about dandelions. Harry leaned back in his chair and let him ramble on. 

It was not as if either of them had anything better to do. It was not as if the world outside was saner. Fudge’s government had gone off the rails, and most everyone Harry knew agreed vehemently on that, and they were on the brink of economic disaster due to badly thought out unemployment alleviation policies. 

The Muggle obsession had not waned, and the newspapers were full of Fudge’s rhetoric, about how he had opened communications with the Muggle government, about how he had asked for representation and allocation of resources to the wizards living in the country. Very little of Fudge’s demands made sense, and the International Association of Wizarding Nations had called Fudge out on the blatant flouting of the Statute of Secrecy. The association feared that Fudge’s nonsense would endanger their kind. Dumbledore feared that too, and Dumbledore feared that the population might revolt, sick of the rising inflation and the unemployment rates in the past few months. There had been sporadic reports, hastily suppressed, of wizards attacking Muggle towns in Newcastle and Bristol. There had been no accounts of the Dark Mark being cast, and Harry was relieved about that, but the Dark Mark had not been seen in the country for many years. Voldemort seemed happy where he was, with the grapes and the weather and the easy coups he had managed on the Continent. 

——

“Voldemort is not too happy about Cornelius’s recent methods,” Dumbledore commented, looking over his correspondence. Harry noticed the French on the scroll. Dumbledore had spies in France, of course. 

Harry was glad to leave all of it to Dumbledore. He was glad to be a nobody in a patent office. He had spent enough of his life trying to be somebody that others had decided the composition of. He knew he should let the comment pass, that he ought to not ask for more information, but he had always been curious about Voldemort, for reasons more than mere fear. He had touched the abomination on Quirrell’s head. He had been once fascinated by Tom Riddle’s diary. He had watched the man step out of a cauldron naked. He had been possessed by Voldemort’s ugly, lethal mind. 

“He doesn’t want increased visibility?” 

“Indirectly, it affects him,” Dumbledore explained. “He has long nursed paranoia about the Muggles. While he seems to have accepted coexistence as a necessary evil, he wants as little to do with them as possible. Cornelius’s attempts to foster collaboration with the Muggle government may one day bring Voldemort’s existence to the light. He knows that in a war with Muggles, genocide will be unlikely to unfold the way he desires.” 

“If he is not the face of his governments, if rarely anybody has seen him in years, he doesn’t have a lot of visibility. Not many people believe that he returned,” Harry pointed out, remembering the fracas of his fifth year. 

“I am aware that the common opinion is that I had constructed an elaborate conspiracy to seize power,” Dumbledore said, laughing. “If anything, that should show us the reach of Malfoy money and the power of Cornelius’s ability to deny reality.”

“Why did the Malfoys go back to him?” Harry asked, curious. “They had cut ties with that past.” 

“Igor Karkaroff was a lesson, I daresay,” Dumbledore said. “Not many would have risked open disloyalty after that.” Dumbledore sighed and leaned back in his chair, eyes moving to the sleeping portrait of Phineas Black. “Lucius Malfoy’s father was young Riddle’s first sponsor. Abraxas Malfoy had been a shrewd businessman and he had seen Riddle as a long-term investment, they say. He may have underestimated Riddle’s ambitions during the early days he had bankrolled their cause.”

“Molly said once that Lucius Malfoy’s father was a nice gentleman, nothing like the current Malfoys. Respectable sort, she said.”

It was hard to imagine a nice and respectable gentleman falling for Riddle’s wiles. Harry imagined nice and respectable gentlemen to be like dear Remus. 

“He had many faces,” Dumbledore said. “Some say that he played a dangerous game with Voldemort all his life, knowing the power of his family fortune and influence. Some say that Voldemort trusted him despite knowing how ruthless and self-serving he was. There are rumours still of how they played chess on the grand lawns of Abraxas Malfoy’s Spanish castle, with real wizards and Muggles as the pieces. Abraxas was the undefeated wizarding chess champion during his years here at school. Voldemort does not like to play games where his win is not guaranteed, and yet he played again and again with Abraxas, and did not go raving berserk when he lost. They had a strange partnership. The politicians were in Abraxas’s pocket and every belle of the ball clamoured to dance with him. His death started the dissolution of their organization, the first time around. Little wonder that Voldemort decided to recoup far away, trusting none, having none left to trust.” 

None of it sounded like just an alliance or a warped friendship. Harry cleared his throat and asked, suppressing a blush, suppressing the scandalised tone in his voice, “Were they involved?”

Voldemort had never seemed the sexual sort. Even the boy Riddle had been had seemed more passionate about the dark arts than about the erotic arts. He had been a looker. Girls would have liked him. He had been too detached and clinical for boys, though. 

Harry thought about it. There had been that fumbling about with Seamus one time, in the Quidditch changing rooms, in their fifth year, but that had been before Ginny. They had never spoken of it afterwards and Seamus had spent many months avoiding making eye-contact with Harry. Harry had not felt queasy about it, but he had not felt anything positive either. It had just happened because of too many butterbeers and a victory. 

“Riddle was popular with the Ravenclaw girls, in the times when he had not isolated himself from everyone,” Dumbledore remembered. “Abraxas had a string of girlfriends through his school years. I don’t believe theirs was a relationship involving intimacy, though there was a great degree of codependency and one-upmanship in their dealing with each other.” 

Harry’s dreams that night were unsettling. He dreamed of a grand Moorish castle, and men drunken feasting while one stood apart, watchful and alien. He dreamed of a cave full of Inferi, and two men on a boat, surrounded by rings of fire, and one was kneeling, holding a hand to his chest, and there was blood pouring out of him. Then the dream shifted, and hundreds were being marched to a black castle, and fanatics ranted about the greater good, the superiority of magic, and on their foreheads there was the mark of the hallows that Rita had scandalously written about. By a river stood three young men quarrelling, and beams of spells crisscrossed the space between them, and a little girl came between them, only to fall like a doll with its strings cut. He dreamed of Diagon Alley being invaded by tanks and men with guns, and Fred and George trying to flee them. He dreamed of Petunia in a witness-stand, in a large courtroom, her pale face lit by the flashes of cameras, as she described her attempts to fix his incurably criminal tendencies. 

——

He woke to blaring street-sirens, to squawky broadcasts from the radio, Kingsley’s voice distorted badly, as he warned all wizarding citizens of the country to be alert, to not panic, to avoid contact with Muggles, to avoid congregating in open spaces, to avoid blatant displays of magic. 

Hermione’s Otter then appeared before him, and her voice, worried, spoke to the silent room, “Harry, go to Hogwarts immediately. Stay put there. The Muggle government has an army surrounding the Ministry. They are rounding up all magic users in London that their detection equipment can find.”

He grabbed his wand and made his way to the Ministry. He reached to find a siege. Soldiers came to his side, guns held ready, and he lifted up his arms to submit to their search. They inspected his driving license and passport, and he was so glad that Hermione had drilled it into him to carry the identifying documents with him at all times, to register with the Muggle government for healthcare and to pay his taxes on time. Most wizards would have no ties to the Muggle world, and they would be the first to get rounded up, fish out of water as they would be when it came to identifying as a Muggle.

“You are clear,” the soldier declared, taking in Harry’s respectable Muggle clothes. “Please return home now. You cannot proceed further as there is terrorist activity here.” 

Harry had to Petrify the soldiers to get past them, and he was going to do that, when a taser zapped him as he brought his wand up. He squealed in pain and lost his footing. 

“None of that now!” the soldier barked, and his comrades came to surround Harry. They wrested him into handcuffs and took his wand. He felt something deep inside him break as they snapped the wand and threw it into a hazardous waste bin they had at their disposal. 

“This could be a spy. He has all the documents on him,” the soldier barked. “Put him in the first truck.” 

They walked him to a large, black truck with bars on its windows. He tried to resist moving into the vehicle, but they shoved him in. There were explosions then, outside, and his heart leapt into his mouth as he realized what that meant. The Ministry had fallen. The truck started up and he was jostled about as he tried to make his way to the barred windows, to look fearfully at the scene outside, as dozens of Aurors were dragged out and placed into a makeshift pen as the soldiers searched them for weapons. Many resisted, but it was futile. 

The truck made away from the centre of the city, and Harry’s knowledge of the roads was limited. He closed his eyes and tried to focus, as Snape had tried to teach him, to channel his magic without a conduit, to try and break his shackles open. 

He had to make it to Hogwarts. He had to make it to Dumbledore. Dumbledore was prepared, Harry knew. Dumbledore had been preparing ever since Fudge had started the election campaign. 

He took a deep breath and focussed on the spark in his mind, the same spark that he had used before to resist Snape’s invasion into his mind. It was faint, nebulous and well-hidden away, but he tried to imagine it growing, to imagine it burning brighter, to imagine it as a sphere of power that he could transmute into magic, through his wrists, to break his shackles. The spark grew in intensity, pure and beautiful, and Harry was overwhelmed by its delicacy and strength, forgetting his plight for a moment. There was a resounding crack as the cuffs gave away and he took a gulp of breath, panting. It had been effortful, but he had done it! He tried to focus on Apparating away from the truck next, trying to imagine himself in the Forbidden Forest. He was not confident, but he knew he had to do it, to escape, and even Dumbledore would not be able to get him out of whatever Muggle security prison they were carting him off to. Dumbledore would have other battles to fight, and Harry needed to be with him to help. Harry needed to make it to Hogwarts to take stock, to figure out how to save Ron and Hermione. 

The truck veered off the road then, and crashed into the ditch adjoining. Harry fell against the metal side and winced as his head hit the bars. There was the sound of gunfire, and bullets clattering against metal and some of them whizzed between the bars into the truck. Harry bundled himself into a ball and stayed put, frightened. He tried to channel his magic again, but the spark was gone, whittled out by fear and panic. Then the shutter opened, and he knelt up hastily, placing his arms above his head in surrender, and instead of the soldiers and the guns he had expected to see, he saw Voldemort standing there with his wand of yew aloft. Seeing the wand brought tears to Harry’s eyes, as he remembered its brother, and the import of it all sunk in, and he stayed where he was, on his knees, shell-shocked. Voldemort looked around at the dark night and then walked into the truck quickly, to pull Harry to his feet, and slapped him once.

“You can deal with it later. We should go,” Voldemort said briskly. He dragged Harry out of the truck and Harry saw that there were armoured vehicles all about, and there were shells scattered at their feet, and there was blood too, and one of the cars exploded right then, and it was like a scene out of a Bruce Willis film. Voldemort walked about to the front of the truck and opened the driver’s door. A body sprawled out from the seat. Voldemort extracted a gun and a few chambers of bullets from the front before walking back to Harry and handing it to him. 

“I can’t-” Harry shook his head. It was too late for all of that. “I don’t know-”

“It is crude and uncomplicated,” Voldemort assured him. Harry stuffed the gun into his jacket. “Come now, wind your arms about my waist. There were helicopters summoned to disperse anti-magic ions when I attacked the first car in your security van. We don’t want to take our chances against that.”

Anti-magic ions? Harry let Voldemort grab his hands and place them about Voldemort’s thin waist. He gripped for dear life as Voldemort flew into the night. The vertigo induced nausea in him, especially after the bouncing about in that truck. 

“Close your eyes,” Voldemort ordered, his voice faint over the night winds.“I can’t Apparate. There are anti-Apparation wards throughout Britain. Hold tight now.” 

Harry closed his eyes just as he heard the distant whirring of helicopters. Voldemort swerved down close to the treelines, and Harry was very glad to keep his eyes closed as barks and leaves scratched their skin as Voldemort wound his way between trees and rocks, staying close to the ground, staying away from the helicopters’ line of sight. 

It seemed like hours, and yet it could not have been, and Harry opened his eyes to the sound of gushing water. They were on the banks of a river. He felt Bubble-head charms being cast and then helicopters came above the tree cover, just as Voldemort tipped them over to be horizontal, flat and aligned with the ground below, just as Voldemort drove them into the water, cutting through the cold surface, until they were eight feet or so deep, and then Harry’s eyes were wide in astonishment and fear as they cut through the water, avoiding rocks and weeds. Voldemort’s robes were flaring behind them like an umbrella, propelled by the thrust of their forward movement. Harry clung tighter, frightened, amazed, and Voldemort must have noticed that, for amusement lit up his eyes and he swerved them about, again and again, so that they were spinning in the water like a turbine in the wind. It was surreal and beautiful, and it made Harry nauseous so he shook his head in silent plea. Voldemort stopped, but there was still amusement in his eyes. 

When they surfaced, Harry saw chalky cliffs and a lighthouse. All was quiet above them, and dawn was breaking over the cold waters. He shivered, as the warming charms fell away, as the Bubblehead charm fell away. 

“South Foreland,” Voldemort murmured, his voice shaky from the cold, as he dragged them to the beach. “The last point of Britain before the Strait of Dover, before we reach the Continent.”

Winds battered them both and Harry huddled deeper into his wet clothes. 

“We have to reach the lighthouse,” Voldemort said, picking his way through the chalky cliffs reminding Harry of mountain goats he had seen on Stephen Fry’s Last Chance to See on the BBC one time, with Hermione. He hoped Ron and Hermione were fine. 

At the lighthouse there were rough, warm blankets. Harry put aside all thoughts of dignity as he followed Voldemort in stripping down to his underclothes and getting underneath the blankets. 

“Brandy,” Voldemort offered, walking barefoot, bare, to the ramshackle cupboard, and unearthing a bottle and two dusty cups. He came back bearing it and a can of hard tack biscuits. He sat down beside Harry and handed him the bottle, before opening the can and taking out a piece of biscuit. Harry was still there benumbed, so Voldemort made a disapproving noise and grabbed the bottle to pour a goodly amount into the two cups. Then he dipped his biscuit in the brandy and nibbled on it delicately. 

“How?”

Harry sipped the brandy and let its heat settle him. He closed his eyes and let the rough blankets nestle him into a false sense of security. 

“Your luck. I knew they were going to attack tonight. I wanted to save some of my possessions still present in this land before they took over. So I was already in the country.” Harry noticed, for the first time, that there was a locket at Voldemort’s bare chest. 

“How did you find me?” 

“You might as well as have summoned me,” Voldemort said dryly. “Your incredible display of wandless magic was my magic.”

“I have to get to Hogwarts,” Harry said quietly. 

“Dumbledore will have cut it off from all means of communication and transportation,” Voldemort noted. “He has been preparing for a long while.”

Harry knew that Dumbledore would have barricaded Hogwarts off from the world. Dumbledore would not fight a war he was unable to win. He was excellent at playing the waiting game, to settle down and prepare in quietness until a chance came.

“I have reasons to keep you safe,” Voldemort said plainly, his eyes on the scar on Harry’s forehead. “Your best option is to come with me.” 

Ron and Hermione were not at Hogwarts. They had been captured, Harry was sure, along with the rest of the Aurors. 

“You cannot help them,” Voldemort said. “You cannot help anyone right now. The Muggles have prepared carefully. Their technology disables us rapidly. Indeed, I cannot even take us across the Channel directly, because of their submarines and aircraft monitoring the waters.”

“How were you planning to leave then?” Harry asked, curious. 

“There is a powerful potion, called the Amagio,” Voldemort replied. “It suppresses the magic of a wizard, for twenty-two hours. It shall be sufficient for us to get into a boat, to row across, to pass any border checks, and to make it to Calais. Once we have crossed into French waters, we are safe.”

“Dandelions!” Harry exclaimed, remembering Rumpus, wondering what had happened to the wizard. 

“Dander of lions,” Voldemort said, looking surprised at Harry’s exclamation. “It is an old potion, developed on the African continent, where lions roam aplenty.” 

Oh, Rumpus had tried to pass off dandelions in the recipe. Harry had known that something was off about that recipe! 

“It does have strong after-effects, on some not born pure of blood,” Voldemort said hesitantly. “We should be well within safety before the manifestation of possible after-effects.” 

—-

They drank the potion at dawn. It had smelled of pomegranates. 

A rowboat to cross the Channel had not been on Harry’s bucket-list. Yet there he was, on rocky shores, pushing a rickety boat to the seas, while Voldemort carefully calibrated a compass to guide them. 

“It is not really necessary,” Voldemort said, getting into the boat after Harry, at the other end, and placing a jar of tack and a jar of water carefully between the bridges of the boat. “The Polestar suffices and there are no clouds. I was born in the city though, and a compass reassures me.”

“Have you done this before?” 

“Once, when I was fleeing Britain,” Voldemort said. “It was not comparable, in that I had not needed to smother my magic, in that I had not been alone.” 

“Alone?” Harry asked, taking the oars and rowing slowly against the waves, to get them onto the sea. 

“We are a whole, aren’t we? As terrible a fate as it sounds,” Voldemort wondered, picking up his oars and handling them with ineptitude that surprised Harry, making him laugh. 

“I will do the rowing,” Harry offered. He had watched plenty of documentaries about tribal settlements and boats with Hermione. 

“Thank you,” Voldemort said courteously, stretching his legs and looking up at the crescent moon. 

“Thank you for getting me out,” Harry muttered, thinking back to the truck. 

“You happen to be attached to something I value,” Voldemort said, without flattery, without an attempt at masking the truth. 

Harry rowed and rowed, and his arms ached, and he imagined that helicopters were following them, waiting to gun them down, and he was frightened by what he had seen, and he tried to distract himself from all of it by watching Voldemort, who had fallen asleep. He suspected Voldemort had not had a good week, if he had been running about Britain, evading the Muggles, trying to retrieve the horcruxes. He had made good on his plan though, and here he was, heading back to France, with his last horcrux rowing him across the Strait. 

——

A large boat waited for them, by a bobbing water-beacon that marked the boundary between the nations, and on it he saw the familiar features of Snape. Double-crossing, self-serving bastard. How had he managed to weasel out of Hogwarts and get to France? He had been still at Hogwarts last week when Harry had visited Dumbledore. 

“Potter!” Snape cried out, surprised. More figures came to the deck, and there were exclamations of shock. Voldemort stirred from his sleep and rubbed his eyes. 

“We can Apparate now?” Harry asked, dreading having to step on a boat that carried Snape and many other Death Eaters. 

“Yes, best not to,” Voldemort said, standing up with remarkable equilibrium despite the fact that he did not seem used to boats. Harry envied his sea legs. “The Amagio potion has after-effects, as I explained before.” 

“I feel fine,” Harry said.

“I don’t,” Voldemort retorted, and Harry noticed that he appeared more drawn and wan than usual. “I prefer not to risk magic, to be in a cabin, shuttered off until we make land.” 

——

“What news of Albus?” Snape asked Harry, as soon he stepped foot on the boat. Voldemort nodded to his men, and made off to a cabin and shut the door behind him with a clack. Well, that had been abrupt. 

“Is Minerva safe?” Snape pressed, scowling at Harry, as if it was all somehow Harry’s fault, as if Harry had been the one who had deserted them and fled to France at the first sign of trouble.

“They should be,” Harry offered tiredly. His arms felt as if they were no longer part of his body, heavy weights, hanging limp at his sides. “Dumbledore was expecting this.”

“Of course he was!” Snape ranted. “He sent here because of that! He wanted a way to ensure that someone made it out, to lead the cause from here, should this come to pass.” 

“He sent you to Voldemort?” Harry asked skeptically. 

“He sent me to Russia,” Snape muttered. “He has powerful friends there.”

“You made a change to that plan and ended up here,” Harry said tiredly. “I don’t even know why he expected you would go to Russia.” 

“I have powerful friends here,” Snape said darkly, scowling. “I didn’t see the point in fleeing to Russia when I could serve his interests better from France. How did the Dark Lord find you?”

“Long story,” Harry said, exhausted. “Can I sleep somewhere?” 

Pain flickered through his scar, adding a layer more to his exhaustion. Voldemort did not seem to enjoy the after-effects of Amagio. 

“What is the after-effect of Amagio?” Harry asked, curious, just as Snape had been turning to leave.

“Amagio has no after-effects, unless your blood carries some genetic predisposition towards haemophilia,” Snape said, switching to lecture-mode. “Inbred pureblood families are at risk, I believe. It depends on what the catalyst was. Pomegranate seeds make for satyriasis. Figs make for vomitting. Barley makes for intestinal bleeding.” 

None of that sounded pleasant. Harry nodded and made for the nearest hammock, wishing to sleep until they made land. 

—-

It was a clear morning in Calais. Snape helped Harry off the boat and Harry turned back to find the white cliffs of Dover against the azure of the strait that separated them. 

“I don’t believe it is a lost cause yet,” Snape said briskly. “Albus had planned for this.” 

Dumbledore planned for everything. 

“Are your friends safe? Are they at Hogwarts?” 

“Hermione was at the Ministry, during the siege. I got there and was captured. I saw the bombs go off and bring the buildings down as they carted me away. I saw them herding the Aurors out into a pen, waiting to sort them and take them to different interrogation centres.” 

Snape did not reply. He gripped Harry’s shoulder and walked away. 

Harry was about to follow him, when he saw Voldemort exiting the cabin. 

“Are you all right?” Harry asked, though he did not know why he had asked. Maybe he was only being kind because Voldemort had got him out, though it had been because of selfish reasons.

“Stay close to Severus,” Voldemort said crisply, making his way down the boat and leaping nimbly across the planks to reach the ferry-landing. He made it look graceful, despite the weariness on his face. “I will see you in a week or so, and I can then present my proposal for your stay in France. I don’t have to warn you to commit no stupidity, do I? No owls, no attempts at Apparating across the strait, no attempts at communication with anyone in Britain, so on and so forth - all sensible measures that nobody need spell out to you. You cannot save anyone.” 

“Not now,” Harry said, remembering what Voldemort had said in the light-house. 

Voldemort’s eyes sparkled as he realised that Harry remembered. He nodded cautiously, and reaffirmed, “You cannot save anyone right now. It may change, should you decide to value your life enough.”

A tremor wracked his thin frame then, and he grimaced. Harry quickly walked away, following Snape’s footsteps. 

—— 

Their quarters in Calais was an old mansion near Cap Blanc Nez, overlooking the sea from the chalk ridge. The sea-spray sometimes came through the grand windows in Harry’s room, waking him up with the tide in the mornings. He was mostly left to himself. Snape came sometimes, ostensibly to make sure that Harry was not doing anything stupid, but he spent most of his time ranting about Harry’s failures and tying them to every misfortune in their lives. Harry let him go on, until he ran out of steam, until he sat quietly in a chair across Harry’s, and they watched the sea together, and they watched the cliffs of Dover mirroring Cap Blanc Nez. Sometimes Snape wondered aloud what Dumbledore was up to. Harry wondered too. 

He missed Dumbledore. The ache in his scar was unrelenting. Voldemort was in pain and in blazing rage both. Snape had noted that Harry’s scar was red. He had put that down to Harry’s proximity to Voldemort. 

“How long will we be here?” 

“A week or so,” Snape said distractedly. “The Dark Lord dislikes travelling fast. I expect he will want to stay here for a few days, before we move towards Paris.” 

“Fudge was so stupid,” Harry said in a small voice, as he thought of Ron and Hermione, and of Rumpus Odiefoot.

“He escaped the Ministry siege,” Snape said harshly. “He let the Aurors be captured and fled somewhere to Kent. He was speaking to the country on the radio, exhorting every wizard and witch to take up arms against the Muggles.”

“It would be better to surrender and treat with them now,” Harry said, upset at what Fudge had done, at what Fudge was doing still. There were so many wizards held as prisoners. Fudge was charging ahead, uncaring of their fates. “This isn’t the medieval era. They will treat with us. It is a liberal country.” 

——

He woke alone in the middle of the night, and watched uneasily the gauzy curtains playing with the wind. He padded, bare of feet, to the windows and stepped through them to the large patio that led to the beach. He saw a head bobbing in the shallow waters. The tide was coming in soon. Worried that it was a tourist who had no idea about the tides, he threw on his jacket and jeans, before running down to the beach. 

It was only Voldemort, shuddering in the freezing water, and he did not look pleased at all on seeing Harry at the beach. 

A wave crested at Harry’s feet and he shivered at the cold. 

“Aren’t you cold?” he shouted, before throwing a warming charm at the man instinctively. Voldemort’s eyes rolled back into his head and he made a keening sound in the back of his throat before throwing Harry’s charm off and dunking himself in the water. 

Must be some sort of ritual. If he wanted to be masochistic, Harry was not going to stop him. Weirded out, extremely, he shook his head and walked back to his room. There were still two hours before dawn, and he needed his sleep.

He heard footsteps behind him. He turned to find Voldemort, a towel thrown hastily about him, advancing rapidly to catch up with Harry. He crossed his arms before his chest and waited. 

“I was only concerned that someone might have been drowning,” Harry explained, trying to head him off before Voldemort started a tirade about snooping. “If I had known that it was you, I wouldn’t have come down.” 

“It is the potion,” Voldemort said in a clipped tone, moving past Harry into his room. He sat at the foot of Harry’s bed and glared at him. Harry noticed absently that there was a sheen to Voldemort’s skin in the moonlight that streamed through the windows. There were drops of sweat at his neck. He was perspiring unnaturally for a night as cold as this one. 

“Try and restrain your savior impulses for two more days, if you can.” Voldemort did not sound optimistic about Harry’s ability to restrain his savior impulse. He got to his feet and walked to the door. 

“Can’t Snape brew something for you?” 

“If he knew, perhaps,” Voldemort allowed. “I would rather keep my sensitivity to the potion to myself.”

“It is only the pomegranate seeds, right?” Harry asked, concerned enough to let the taboo nature of the subject slip. “The others sound dangerous to live with for a week. You need a healer if it is one of those.”

“My body is a temple of dark magic,” Voldemort said cheerfully, sounding very much like Albus Dumbledore, neither confirming nor denying Harry’s assumption. “I doubt any healer specialises in my species. Thank you for your concern, Harry. Goodnight.” 

With that, he was off.

——

“He swims in the night,” Harry said uncomfortably, when he was taking his afternoon tea with Snape, who had invited himself over promptly at three past noon. 

“The Dark Lord has…peculiar preferences,” Snape muttered. “Not unlike Albus. Albus liked swimming with sharks circling him. I suspect he does not know how to tell them apart from dolphins.” 

They needed to make BBC’s nature documentaries a mandatory part of Hogwarts education. 

“Any news from Britain?” 

“They took St. Mungo’s.”

——

That night was tempestuous. Harry watched the lighting strike the cliffs, the waves roaring loud, and sea-spray crashing against the large decks of the mansion’s many rooms. His scar hurt badly, and he saw Voldemort pacing irritably by the beach, windswept and rainswept. The water was too dangerous to venture into that night. He made a cutting figure, in black robes that clung to his skin, railing silently against the elements. Voldemort must sensed Harry’s gaze, because he turned about to look up unerringly at Harry. Harry did not move. He felt untethered and afraid, as a child alone in a storm, deprived of friends and of Dumbledore, worried for his friends and for Dumbledore. The scar was a heated song of pain, refusing to let him find rest in sleep.

Voldemort rushed up the beach, to Harry’s deck, and he looked out of place among the white wicker chairs. 

“Stop stalking me!” Voldemort exclaimed angrily. “There is nothing you can gain by earning my wrath.”

“I feel it already, having done nothing to earn it,” Harry shouted, pointing to his bleeding, inflamed scar. “Do something about this before you drive us both mad.” 

Voldemort’s rage mellowed as he came forward curiously to inspect Harry’s scar. 

“Fascinating,” he said thoughtfully, peering at it as if it was the most wondrous thing he had seen. 

Harry did not find it fascinating, not when it bled red and drilled holes of pain through his head. 

“Do something about this,” Harry pled, tired of his sleepless nights, tired of the scar’s pain, tired of this in addition to the fears and worries that plagued him. 

“It will pass,” Voldemort said distractedly. “It is only a sickness of the flesh.” Harry noted the flush of blood on his cheekbones, Harry noted the tremor in his fingers, Harry noted how glazed bright Voldemort’s eyes were. 

“You haven’t done anything,” Harry said, shocked. 

“Denial strengthens magic,” Voldemort said quietly. “It is a principle as old as our world, Harry. You cannot expect me to forego such an opportunity to be stronger.” 

He sounded very much like the Opus Dei that Hermione had told Harry about. Harry was not too convinced. Yes, Dumbledore was a poster-figure for abstinence and denial, and it seemed to work well for him. Voldemort looked ill, though, and he was dragging Harry down with him.

“It isn’t working,” Harry said boldly. “My scar tells me that much.”

“You want me to find a whore and ease urges of my flesh so that you can sleep better?” Voldemort asked incredulously. 

Urges of the flesh? Who called it that? That should not have made Harry’s body tremble in response. It must have been the cold and the rain. He shook his head and said, “Two more days?”

“Two more days,” Voldemort confirmed.

——

Harry walked through the town, through the seedier parts, until he found the place he had been looking for. He ducked his head and entered the shabbily decorated homestead, that also served a different purpose. Little girls ran about, playing hopscotch, and he hoped to dear God that they were not involved in the flesh trade. 

“How can I help you, young man?” 

She had African blood in her. Beautiful woman. He smiled at her and asked shyly, “I wanted to try, you know.” 

He had been driven to this by Voldemort’s stupidity. The scar was a bleeding mess on his forehead. His needs ran rampant and his cock was sore from masturbating all night. He had tried swimming, emulating Voldemort’s methods, and it had not worked. 

He had never had sex. He had wanted to wait, for marriage, for a serious partner. Ginny had called him a fool, but he had not taken it to heart. Now, though, with the danger placed on everything and everyone he had cared for across the strait, with the lack of support and stability, he wanted a reprieve. He had thought about it for a long time, lying restless and sleep-deprived in his bed. 

She led him to a small room, where there was a woman older than him, bronze of skin and flawless, waiting. He felt clumsy and tongue-tied. The women exchanged words in French, rapidly, and there were a few giggles, and he smiled bashfully. 

“You are in good hands,” the African woman told him, before closing the door behind her. 

“Nicole,” she said. 

It was a fake name, he was sure. 

“Harry,” he offered. What reason had he to hide? 

She came to take him by the hands and gently led him towards the bed. His skin blazed with sensation at the contact. Pleasure erupted through his scar and he wondered, dimly, if Voldemort would sense it. He hoped not. 

She undid his trousers and got to her knees. Her mouth was a sin and a pleasure, and Harry came softly with his hands wound tight in her copper hair. She must have been pleased by his fast response, because she smiled brightly at him.

“You get ready again and we fuck,” she told him. 

Then he felt a bit sad. He wanted to have sex with her. She was beautiful, a goddess. Yet, something did not feel right about that. He declined and pressed a soft kiss to her hands, before leaving. 

—-

Voldemort was in his room, pacing up and down, looking furious, with his hands clenched tight into fists and his face drawn taut. 

“I don’t want to discuss this,” Harry said firmly, knowing then that Voldemort had felt it all. It must have been intensely cruel, what with Voldemort’s determination to stay away from the urges of the flesh.

“One more day!” Voldemort shouted, and it was nearly a howl. “You could have waited!” 

Harry hoped very dearly that nobody else had overheard that. 

“Calm down,” Harry tried, appealing to reason that Voldemort seemed to have left behind. “You are nearly there. Just go swimming. It works for you. It didn’t work for me.”

“Every touch, every strand of hair of hers on your skin, the warmth of her mouth-” Voldemort complained, and took a deep breath and brought a hand to his eyes. “I cannot get the memories out of my flesh. Couldn’t you have waited for one more day?”

Harry stayed silent, unsure where Voldemort’s mind was going with this. He was fairly sure that he wanted no part of that journey. Maybe Voldemort should have tried this abstinence business at home, when he had enough grounding to have stronger mental shields, to keep Harry away from and out of his self-enforced plight. 

“This is why they don’t advise making a horcrux out of a person,” Voldemort muttered, as if to himself. “What matters it if my flesh is strong, if yours is weak?” 

“You sound like a Catholic priest,” Harry said, resisting the urge to roll his eyes.

“They do it for a God that doesn’t exist. I do it for power that I can feel bursting at my fingertips,” Voldemort retorted, bringing said finger-tips to Harry’s scar, and pleasure took root in the scar, eclipsing the pain, and warmth grew in waves over Harry’s body, cresting over his skin, over . 

“Oh,” Voldemort whispered, looking stricken, taking his fingers away, taking a hasty step backwards. “I have over-reached. I hadn’t expected-”

He looked as chalk-white as the cliffs. Harry wanted to tell him to get a grip on himself. So he surprised himself, just as badly as he surprised Voldemort, when he reached out and stroked the pad of his thumb against Voldemort’s trembling fingers. 

“I don’t recommend this course of action,” Voldemort said haplessly, before turning to lean into Harry’s light touch. Then, as Harry pressed more firmly, Voldemort shook his head, and took a deep breath as if to gather the remnants of his determination, and left the room. 

Harry supposed he should be glad, but he was breathing heavily and he felt faint. So he sat down on his bed and tried to calm down. 

They made their way to Paris next evening. There was no marked change in Voldemort’s interactions with him afterwards, as he was treated courteously, but carefully, like the bird in a cage that he had become. 

——


	3. The cave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Snape provides sage advice, in which Harry learns that it rains in the South of France, in which Voldemort carries a gourd around.

“News?” Harry asked tentatively. 

Snape grunted as he flicked his eyes over the nearly illegible writing on the scroll. 

“Nymphadora’s father,” he said tersely. “Ted Tonks.” 

“Is she-?”

“He has not been able to obtain tidings of her. He writes to tell me about Amelia Bones. She managed to escape the Ministry that night. With a group of trusted men, she was lying low in Innisfree. They have managed to gather those who hadn’t fled to Dumbledore. Now she is setting out to negotiate a truce with the Muggle government in Britain. She is not the Minister, but since the Minister has not made a public appearance in the last few months, she may as well be the one vested with authority.”

“Any news from Hogwarts?” Harry asked softly, hoping, needing. He had resigned himself to not ask about Ron and Hermione anymore. He had to focus on what held a glimmer of hope. He had to focus on Dumbledore.

“Albus has sealed Hogwarts off completely. I don’t expect to hear anything until he is ready, Potter.”

“He sent you to look for allies.”

“He has allies. However, no ally can aid him from across the Channel. His best bet is concealment. He is strongest at Hogwarts. Strategically, it would be a catastrophe to risk that.”

Harry did not reply. What could he say? He waited and waited, for a sign, for a shred of information, for a miracle. He waited for Dumbledore to contact him. Surely Fawkes could outwit the Muggle intelligence networks in bringing Harry a message? Harry knew that Dumbledore would have found a way to communicate, if he had wanted to. 

Dumbledore had not contacted him.

Why? Did he believe that Harry had been captured? Did he know that Harry was in Voldemort’s keeping, in a safe-house in France?

He felt powerless. He felt impotent. His sole visitor was Snape. He had been left to his own devices. He had not seen Voldemort, or anyone else, after he had been tucked away in a little house in Aix-en-Provence. Snape maintained that he had no idea of what Voldemort’s plans for Harry involved. He speculated that it would not be to Harry’s tastes, whatever it unfolded to be. Harry could see that too. 

Harry wanted to do something, to get out and do something to help Ron and Hermione and Tonks and everyone else. He wanted to aid Dumbledore’s plans. 

“Are you acquainting yourself with a page or two of the textbook I left behind last time?” Snape asked then. He did not sound optimistic. 

Harry snorted and replied, “A first year Charms textbook.” 

“Filius skipped the theory sometimes. I disagree with that approach. I can see why First Years may not find it enticing. You are old enough now. It can’t harm. I am convinced that only Miss Granger read the textbooks.”

“I didn’t read it back then. Last week, I read it,” Harry admitted. “It is useful.” 

It was more than just useful. Now he knew a great deal more about the why and the how of warming charms than he had before. 

Snape pushed his tea-cup about restlessly, looking away from Harry, deep in thought.

“He has been odd, odder than his odd self,” Snape muttered. “Wondered if Bella could see Regulus in you.” 

“What?” Harry asked, startled. It was not unlike Snape to comment wryly on Voldemort’s eccentricities, but Snape had not sounded bothered in the past. 

“Regulus Black?” Harry continued. Sirius’s brother. Harry made a wise decision and refrained from mentioning Sirius’s name. Snape’s level-headedness was guaranteed to crash if Harry mentioned the Marauders or Lily. 

“Yes,” Snape said, troubled. He did not make eye-contact as he continued, “New cadres rarely were noticed, back then. There had been so many. He was a Black though. Shiny. He gained attention. I suppose it might have ended better if he hadn’t.”

Harry did not reply. He remembered what Sirius had said about his dead brother. Sirius was dead too. Now it was just Harry and Snape, waiting in France, waiting for Dumbledore to pull an ace out of his sleeve. 

“Regulus did have some of your qualities,” Snape said reflectively. He cleared his throat and said hastily, as if to get it over with, “He was different from his brother. Everybody who knew them knew that. I cannot say why the Dark Lord thought Bella would see the similarities. Perhaps he has not realised how deranged she has become after Azkaban. She had been a force to be reckoned with before, sharp and incisive, observant and intuitive, cruel and ruthless, immensely capable of rooting out secrets without Legilimency.”

Harry could see that. Bellatrix had not made it out of Azkaban as intactly as Sirius had, or as intactly as her other comrades had. Mostly he attributed that to the fact she had been insane before. It would be just like Voldemort to not have noticed. He wasn’t really any good at noticing changes to anything he had convinced himself to be safe once. Dumbledore had capitalised on that flaw more than once. Voldemort had not learned yet from those lessons, it seemed.

He thought about Regulus, about what Sirius had said. Regulus had been shy and introverted, just as Harry was. Regulus had been insecure and wanting to please, just as Harry was. He had been kind too, according to Kreacher.

—-

The door-bell was a pleasant surprise. Snape’s usual tactic was to knock until Harry opened. He considered the door-bell beneath him. 

Pleased by this new show of courtesy from his daily uninvited guest, Harry put on the kettle and ambled over. 

He opened the door to see Voldemort, holding a red umbrella, clad in red robes. He looked like a geisha from that Japanese film Harry had watched with Hermione. She had cried a lot during the film, and afterwards. 

“It is not raining,” Harry said dumbly. 

“I believe in preparation,” Voldemort replied, easily side-stepping Harry and walking into the house. 

“It doesn’t rain here,” Harry pointed out, confused, following Voldemort towards the merrily humming kettle. “We are in the South of France.” 

The universe conspired against him then, and suddenly there were storm-clouds dimming the bright afternoon light, and there was lightning and thunder. Harry moved hastily to close the kitchen windows before the rain drenched his blue and white curtains. 

“Tea?” he asked, feeling out of his depth utterly. He had expected Snape to show up. Voldemort had tucked him away here and forgotten about him, or so he had thought. 

“We are not in Britain,” Voldemort said, opening his robes deftly. Harry could only stare at him in shock. He wore a plain set of black robes underneath, and at his waist was a scabbard and a gourd. 

Harry felt undressed in his khakis and white shirt. And he had no words left to articulate his confusion. Just as well, because Voldemort took the gourd and offered it to Harry. It sloshed invitingly. Automatically, mindlessly, Harry drank from it. It tasted like the rose that Hermione had been fond of on summer afternoons. He handed it back. Voldemort shook it once, and it smelled different.

“I prefer a white myself,” Voldemort explained, drinking from the gourd. 

“All right,” Harry acquiesced. He needed to sit down. Had Voldemort been as nutty always, or was he trying things that Dumbledore did on a daily basis? 

“Why is it raining?”

“Evaporation and condensation, Harry,” Voldemort said in a tone that would have suited a classroom well. He folded the umbrella, pushed it against the carpet vertically, and balanced himself jauntily, left palm on the curved edge. He looked like those Victorian gentlemen Hermione swooned over, except for the red robes and the general alienness. 

“Thank you for visiting,” Harry said haplessly, sitting down on the nearest chair. Then, because it was worth a try, he asked, “Any news from Britain?” 

“Nothing that you would care for,” Voldemort said. He bent over and nodded to himself, and then blew across Harry’s forehead. The scar prickled in discomforted pleasure. 

Harry surged back, away from Voldemort, confused at the surreality of it all. He caught notice of the locket dangling at Voldemort’s neck then. It was the same locket that Voldemort had brought back with him from Britain many months ago, when Harry had rowed them across the Channel. 

“You are handsome,” Voldemort announced. It was testimony to Harry’s shot nerves that he did not even flinch at that declaration. Instead, he found himself waiting patiently for the next overhaul of his neat, little world. 

“It is quite pleasing to me,” Voldemort continued, inspecting Harry’s baffled face critically, as if he were a Sotheby’s auction item. “A beautiful man, carrying a portion of my beautiful soul. I would not have been pleased if you had looked as uncomely as Pettigrew or Cornelius Fudge. I prefer my possessions to show aesthetic virtue.”

Harry’s mind had broken down earlier in the conversation. He did not even make an attempt to understand Voldemort’s words. So he said futilely, “Thank you. I think you were good-looking too, back before everything.”

“I was good-looking then,” Voldemort said graciously. “Now, though, now I am perfection.”

He beamed upon Harry like a benevolent uncle. Harry reached out for the gourd. He needed alcohol to hit his bloodstream fast. 

“Time to take my leave,” Voldemort declared. “No need to see me off, Harry.”

——

“He is insane!” 

“Hardly an earth-shattering revelation,” Snape muttered, helping himself to a second cup of tea. 

“No, I mean it,” Harry insisted. “He has gone off the rails.” 

Snape glared at him. “Enlighten me, if you would, Mr. Potter, as to why you thought him sane at all. He has orchestrated mass murder of innocents, political coups, pursued immortality, and personally assigned you to a hell for all your life for being an unwitting party in a prophecy about him.”

“He is bloodthirsty and evil,” Harry said despondently. “Now, in addition to all that, he carries umbrellas and makes it rain a lot in the South of France.” 

Snape blinked at him. 

“I had best start at the beginning,” Harry offered. 

As they sat drinking lukewarm tea, as Harry narrated the troubling encounter, conveniently leaving out the part where Voldemort had called him good-looking, Snape’s eyebrows danced in consternation on his forehead. Then he finally said, sounding amused and scandalised both, “He was high as a kite, I daresay.” 

“What?” 

“When he has time to while away, he runs all sorts of noxious, ill-considered, audacious experiments, on himself and on others. It is his hobby.” Snape pronounced the word hobby with intense dislike, as if it were a sexually transmitted disease. “Back before your time, he had been cultivating marijuana and poppies. It had been a profitable business, I recall.” 

Harry shook his head in bewilderment. 

“The waiting has bored him, I suppose. He needs war to keep him focussed,” Snape said. “I heard about the rain experiment. Supposedly, he has been practising abstinence long enough to grant him reserves of energy and magic that, unexpended, follows him about in the form of rainclouds. Fascinating, though now the Death Eaters have had to purchase raincoats and galoshes to keep dry during the meetings.”

“Has he given up on the prophecy?” 

Dumbledore thought that Voldemort had. Voldemort had come to his senses, according to the Headmaster, and had found easier goals to pursue. Yet, Harry knew how much Voldemort hated him, hated him for causing his fall, hated him for escaping again and again. Harry had single-handedly brought him shame and failure, repeatedly. For all that Voldemort smiled and complimented him, there had to be a sinister plot behind the cordiality. 

“He is a contradictory man. Sometimes, he obsesses. Sometimes, he is easily distracted.” Snape sighed and looked at Harry, as if seeing secrets in eyes that Harry had inherited from his dear mother. “I believe he wished to end your life since he obsessed over the prophecy. Nothing, nobody could have withstood him when he was focussed on hunting you down. Now, though, now it seems he has other motives in mind. He wants you here with him, to ensure some validation, a rubber seal of approval, for whatever he has in mind for Britain. You are Harry Potter. You will be useful, as you have been, to many causes and many leaders. People believe in you, for some reason. I cannot fathom why.”

“He killed my parents. He tried to kill me,” Harry said roughly, feeling his voice break. 

And it no longer mattered to Voldemort. Now, it was only a memory of something Voldemort had once wanted, and discarded as too trivial. Did it make his parents’ death meaningless and unnecessary, did it make Sirius’s suffering meaningless and unnecessary, because Voldemort no longer considered the prophecy meaningful? If Voldemort had lost interest before, would Harry have grown up with Lily and James, and Sirius? 

“I don’t want to be his rubber seal of approval, for Britain,” Harry said firmly, trying not to let his anger and wretchedness betray his tone. “I want to help Dumbledore. I cannot. Let me at least find a way to help Amelia Bones. If she succeeds in bringing the Muggles to the table for a truce, then I can plead for my friends.”

“Heroically spoken, like the hero they say you are.” Snape sneered at him. Harry glowered back. “You should not discount the Dark Lord’s power in keeping you safe. If he has taken an interest in you, nurse it, coax it, grow it. He enjoys power. Dangle it before him. The Chosen One himself, enticingly close to surrendering self voluntarily: I doubt he will be unaffected. At the very least, you can learn from him. He is an excellent teacher, and maybe he can finally drill into you about the foolishness of wand-waving when there are more efficient ways to accomplish your goals.”

“It sounds sordid, when you put it that way,” Harry muttered, pouring himself more tea. 

He was still thinking about the prophecy. If Voldemort had encountered a more distracting matter, he would not have bothered to obsess over it. Or would he? The maybes would be the death of Harry’s sleep in the days to come, he knew. 

“If you care about your means, you may not reach your end,” Snape told him condescendingly. 

\--------


	4. Antigone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Harry tries to follow Snape's schemes, in which Voldemort storms about, in which Dumbledore continues to be conspicuously absent.

He had to do something. He looked at the list on the table. Together, Snape and he had combed over the set of acquaintances they had in common, and they had marked each that had not been in Britain during the fall of the Ministry. 

Charlie Weasley. Last in Romania. Harry wrote to him.

Bill Weasley. Egypt. Harry wrote to him.

Fleur Delacour. France. Harry wrote to her. 

And Madame Maxime. 

In each letter, he crisply explained his situation. He was in France. Voldemort knew where he was. He had little power at his disposal. Harry would help any effort to free the wizards in the Muggle jails, though, if he was asked to. In the letters to Bill and Charlie, Harry also detailed what little he knew of what had befallen the Ministry, and of what had happened to Hermione, Ron and Tonks. 

“Remus.” 

“Nobody has heard,” Snape said. “Fenrir reports that any straggling werewolves had been shot down with tranquilizer darts, and then kept in cages of silver. Muggle science fiction occasionally remembers the correct solutions.” Seeing Harry’s terrified face, he hastily added, “If he had any sense, he would have fled to Hogwarts in time. Nymphadora would have warned him in advance.”

The more Harry thought, the less hopeful he turned. He had to keep going, though. 

“What is Draco doing these days?” he asked, curious.

“Changing nappies,” Snape said tartly. “His wife is a Parisienne socialite. He stays at home with his two children and attempts to miseducate them. Neither Lucius nor Narcissa approve of his decision to take on this role, but it would have been different if they hadn’t insisted that he marry that empty-headed doll. Draco has many faults, but he knows what parenting means, if only because Narcissa was a good parent to him.”

“And his father?” Harry asked, relishing the gossip. A part of him was surprised at how Malfoy had turned out. A part of him was not. Even back in their schooldays, family had been a major theme in young Malfoy’s life. He had worshipped his parents. 

“Lucius doted on his only son,” Snape said disapprovingly. “Fed him Honeydukes thrice a day, as meals. If not for Narcissa’s occasional attempts at sternness, he would have become a monster, unchecked, and died of diabetes at ten. Lucius tried to make up for generations of cold and distant Malfoy parents, I suspect.” 

“His parents?” 

“Lucius’s mother was a Black. She ran off with a Malfoy second-born son when she was fifteen. He died in Spain, after a foolish duel. They brought her back. There was a scandal. The Blacks were furious. The Malfoys blamed the girl. The Dark Lord did not want disharmony in his ranks. Lucius’s father agreed to marry her, to mend the peace. She died in childbirth. Lucius’s father buried her, and sent Lucius to be raised with his cousins at the Blacks, and never married again. He did not dislike his son, mind you. He simply preferred the company of his peacocks and house-elves, and spent the rest of his life happily puttering about in that grand old house of his, rarely making an appearance outside unless it was demanded of him. The Dark Lord liked Spain, so every summer they would go there and spend a few weeks on the Moors.”

“Sounds like Lucius Malfoy had a terrible childhood,” Harry said sympathetically. Harry had been sent to live with his aunt, uncle and cousin. Look at how that had turned out! He had little reason to believe that the Blacks were kinder. 

“His cousins were more attractive than your cousin,” Snape assured him. “He wooed them all, one after the other, persistently. Andromeda was too meek for him. He was too meek for Bellatrix. Then he finally settled his sights on the youngest. He married Narcissa on the day she left Hogwarts.” 

Would Harry’s childhood have been easier if his cousin had been female? 

“You may want to acquaint yourself with Draco’s wife,” Snape said distastefully. “Her sole virtue is that she is a magnet for the exiles. They flock to her parlour, on Friday nights, and discuss the state of affairs interspersed with coffee and irrelevant gossip.” 

Harry scrunched his nose. 

“Your erstwhile school rival will not be there,” Snape assured him. “He values his parenting too seriously to attend the parties.” 

“I think I’d rather deal with him than with his wife, all said and done,” Harry muttered. Draco was a prat, but he wasn’t all that stupid. The wife sounded like one of the women Hermione loved to condemn with sharp words and scornful glares. 

Snape hummed and returned to their list. Keeping his eyes on Harry’s scrawl, he asked cautiously, “Have you given thought to establishing a rapport with the Dark Lord?” 

“It doesn’t sound half as sordid as the last time you suggested it to me,” Harry said wryly. Except, it still did. Harry did not know if this had been a regular item on Snape’s spying menu. He did not want to know. 

“Mr. Potter, if you are in earnest about this enterprise of yours to aid Amelia Bones, you should get yourself a stronger base of support. The Dark Lord will keep you tethered to him, but you may be able to buy some slack to your leash if you gain a degree of his attention, and manage to keep it for a while. That freedom will be valuable to contact and bring in a stronger base of allies and supplies.” 

“What does he think about your visits?” Harry asked, curiously. Voldemort had not killed Snape yet. 

“He sees the necessity of keeping you in a healthy state of mind, isolated as you are here. He sees the necessity of not killing me until the Muggle issues are solved. He may need to communicate with Dumbledore at some point. I am the only one Dumbledore would trust, in such a situation. If it comes to war with the Muggles, my potions expertise will be valuable. Bella Black despises me. The Pureblood Death Eaters do not understand why I have the Dark Lord’s favour. The Dark Lord likes the dynamics of that, as well. In short, Mr. Potter, I am useful and amusing. I am fascinating. All of these ought to provide you clues as to how you might gain leverage as well.”

“You didn’t try to…establish a rapport with him, though,” Harry pointed out, taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes. 

“As fate would have it, Lucius’s father had been alive when I had been inducted. He was fond of sending anyone who tried such antics to the front-lines, on risky missions. For a man who despised the Muggles, he had little compunction in following David’s footsteps.” 

“David?” 

“David, King of Israel,” Snape said. Then he frowned and said dismissively, “Hardly a concern for your petite brain. Focus on the Charms textbook.”

Well, it was good to know that Snape considered him to be as inept as ever. Harry could not bring himself to be bothered by that. He needed to fix everything. He needed to get Ron and Hermione (and he had to believe they were both unharmed). He had to help Dumbledore. He had to help Amelia. 

——

Harry was waiting on tenterhooks for replies to his letters. So, it was just par for the course, that he was snatched into space and time, whirling, to fall between a man’s spread legs, under a large table, with a resounding thwack.

A dozen heads craned down to look at him. Wincing, he carefully rubbed his elbows and wrenched himself from beneath the table. 

“I need to finetune that spell,” Voldemort allowed, looking none too rattled by the fact Harry had been Apparated to the space between his legs. Did he do that to the Death Eaters too? He offered Harry a hand up. Harry grabbed the edge of the table and pulled himself up. Around the table sat wizards, old and morose, looking at him as if he were to blame. Some looked Nordic, and some American. One looked Irish. 

“I am Harry,” he offered. 

“Hello, Harry,” one of the Americans boomed. 

Beside Harry, Voldemort winced at the tone, but said jovially, “I have produced Harry. Now, are you convinced that I have him in my keeping? Should I hurt his scar? He will fall, roll around, and be in theatrical pain. You may be better convinced that way.”

The American looked aghast, and hastily shook his head. Harry wondered if Voldemort was serious. He could not tell. He was glad that his scar did not hurt. 

“Very well, then,” Voldemort murmured, and Harry was Apparated away, back to his little house in Aix-en-Provence, where it had rained only once. 

 

Wonderful. Harry decided that the answers could be found in tea. Trelawney had been right about that, even if she had been wrong about most everything else.

——

There was a polite ring at his door-bell, at three in the morning. Harry, ever a light sleeper, startled and woke up. 

He heard thunder and rain. 

He put his fuzzy socks on and trudged to the front door. Sure enough, outside stood Voldemort patiently, with his red umbrella. 

“Where did you get that umbrella from?” Harry asked, turning his tired eyes away from that bright splash of colour. 

“The Chinese ambassador gave it as a gift,” Voldemort replied, entering the house, and shutting the door behind them. 

“I don’t like being Apparated, involuntarily, and ending up under a table between your legs.” 

“That became you well, nonetheless,” Voldemort complimented him cheerfully, and sketched a little bow.

Harry was about to change the subject, knowing well that there was no limit to Voldemort’s depraved imagination when high, and then he remembered Snape’s advice. Reluctantly, he dredged up a grin, and said, “Kind of you to notice.”

“I watch you, Harry. How could I not? You carry my soul. I constantly evaluate if you are good enough for the privilege that my Death Eaters would have cut off their right arms for.”

Harry cut through the pomposity and asked, “Why? Are they all left-handed?” 

Voldemort blinked, thrown off, before he said, “I see Severus’s company has not been without effects.” 

“You said that if I valued my life, if I did not throw myself foolishly into danger, I would get an opportunity to help.”

“I had expected Dumbledore to reel you into his schemes,” Voldemort said. “I hear the Weasley in Egypt is working for him. Yet, here you are.”

Well, Dumbledore was unpredictable, when it came to involving others in his plots. He would ask Harry to join, he was sure. It was only a matter of when. It used to infuriate Harry. He had grown out of that. The earth went about the sun, the moon about the earth, and Dumbledore played his cards close to his chest. 

“I want to help Amelia Bones. She is trying to negotiate a truce.”

“She is doing poorly,” Voldemort noted. “At least, she has had the sense to stay hidden. There are many veterans of our old war, accompanying her. Alastor Moody leads them. That is a guerrilla army, Harry. I doubt you will find any common ground with them, except for the obvious one.”

“You have a guerrilla army too,” Harry pointed out. “It worked for you.” 

“Not until I gave up on the idea of coming to power via a civil war,” Voldemort explained. “France and Germany, Italy and Spain, Portugal and Greece. They were easier, because their political systems knew only corruption, and I put in candidates who were cleaner, relatively. Power is easier to keep when you are not the face of it. There is anti-incumbency, but what does it matter to me, when I simply swap candidates each time?” His eyes looked into the distance. “Britain. Dear, old Britain. The Muggle cause was my cause because of my convictions, and because it was the right time to fix it. That time has passed. There is no quick salvation there, Harry, for our kind. Dumbledore knows that the only salvation is in secrecy. I know that the only salvation is here, where I have governments at my bidding. You are welcome to aid anyone you choose, as long as you do not cross the Channel. If there are refugees, fleeing Britain, they have a place here. I have instituted a process to ensure that. If they desire, they can work here until they can pay for board on one of the ships leaving for America or Australia.” 

Harry stared him, shocked. He had thought, he had always thought, that Voldemort would one day return to Britain. And what better time would there be, than one of dire need, when Britain needed to be succoured? 

“You want Hogwarts,” Harry said quietly. It had been the foundation of Voldemort’s psyche, hadn’t it? Overthrowing Dumbledore and taking control of the school. 

“He has it,” Voldemort said easily. “I haven’t stepped foot in there in half a century, Harry. The stones call to me. The magic calls to me. I am tied by the blood of the Founders. However, I have spent more of my life on the Continent than in Britain. This is my home.” Voldemort’s composure cracked for an instant, showing determination wrought of despair. “Europe was my shelter when I needed aid. I will defend Europe. Britain can fend for herself.” 

“You gave up,” Harry said, trying to get a rise out of him, trying to make him angry enough to act. 

“Your blood has destabilised me,” Voldemort said calmly, looking at Harry as if he were a particularly interesting and rare specimen. “I had dabbled in blood magic before, but rarely had it been as destabilising as when I took your blood into my veins, into my heart.”

The power of Lily’s love, that Dumbledore had explained so many times, was likely the reason. This Harry knew. Why was Voldemort telling him that? 

“Your magic, though,” Voldemort smiled a shark’s smile. “Your magic has nourished me. It has given me the strength and the focus to repair myself from those decades of suffering. While I daresay sanity had never been my strong suit, I am level enough now.”

“I guess that is good,” Harry said, not knowing what else to say. 

“And what that means for you, my dear Harry, is that you cannot easily bait me into going to war with the Muggles in Britain. I will let Amelia and her Aurors try and die. I will let Dumbledore keep Hogwarts. It matters not a jot to me.”

Harry could only stand there, staring, benumbed and frightened, as it dawned on him that there would be no aid from Voldemort. He had counted on Voldemort’s obsession with Hogwarts, on Voldemort’s obsession with defeating Dumbledore, on Voldemort’s obsession with remaking Britain in his name. 

Yet, why would Voldemort risk his stable base here? Here he had found contentment and power enough to satisfy even him. Magical Britain was ruined. Why would he return to attempt a rescue? They had hunted him down, justifiably and righteously, for years. He had fallen there into failure and humiliation. 

Harry would not return too, perhaps, if his circumstances had been similar. 

He had to return. For Ron and Hermione. For everyone else. For Dumbledore. He cleared his throat and reached out for the tea-kettle. Pouring himself cold tea, he occupied his hands and thought. Voldemort was waiting patiently. Something in Voldemort’s stillness reminded Harry of Snape, and that reminded him of Snape’s exhortations. 

Feeling stupid, feeling determined, he asked, “You have explained the effect of my blood on you. You have explained the effect of my magic on you.” He dared meet Voldemort’s curious gaze. He cleared his throat again, and asked in a rasp, “What about the effect of my body?” 

There was quiet then, broken only by Harry’s harsh breathing, and Voldemort’s soft exclamation of surprise. They watched each other, as they had once watched each other before the Mirror of Erised, as they had once watched each other with a Basilisk’s corpse at their feet, as they had once watched each other with a cauldron betwixt them, as they had once watched each other in the Department of Mysteries over Bellatrix’s fallen form. Had they watched each other so, Harry wondered, over Lily’s lifeless form in Godric’s Hollow? It was a morbid thought. He put it out of his mind. He had goals. He needed Voldemort until he reached Dumbledore, until he had extricated Ron and Hermione from the prisons they had been carted off to.

“Would you prostitute yourself for a futile attempt at saving that broken nation?” Voldemort wondered, taking a step back carefully, as if alarmed by Harry’s proposal. “I had expected your morals to be loftier.” 

He had only this chance. He had already been brave and stupid. He could venture ahead more. So he asked, “Is it prostitution between us? We share blood, magic, and soul.”

Voldemort did not reply, quietly assessing Harry’s words and posture.

“You did not answer my question,” Harry pressed, with bravado he inwardly shirked away from. “Do you want me?” 

Voldemort made a shrugging sort of motion, before snatching Harry’s cup of tea and taking a gulp. He must be truly shaken then. Harry had heard Dumbledore say that Voldemort did not like tea or coffee. He liked warm milk and biscuits.

Outside, the storm railed louder, and Harry’s windows rattled in displeasure. Voldemort looked angry and on the cusp of launching into violence.

“I found you attractive in the Chamber,” Harry offered uneasily. 

The violence banked on Voldemort’s features morphed into surprise, and then amusement. “Harry, Harry,” he said sardonically. “You were a teenager with raging hormones. I had caught the eye of even faithful nuns sworn to celibacy. Hardly a surprise that you wanted me then.”

Harry shrugged. He guessed that was true. Tom Riddle had been handsome and charming. Cedric Diggory, amplified a hundred times. 

“That was then,” Voldemort added. “Do you find me attractive now?” 

Harry did not reply. He did not meet Voldemort’s gaze. Voldemort sighed in exasperation and handed him back the tea-cup. 

“I-” Harry sputtered off, not knowing what to say. 

“It is a dire situation, but hardly one that can be addressed by spreading your legs for your parents’ murderer,” Voldemort informed him. Harry flinched, thinking of his father’s stag protecting him from Dementors, thinking of Lily’s voice in his nightmares. 

“They are dead,” he said finally, after many moments of silence. “They are dead. I am alive. My friends are alive. Dumbledore is alive. I can only help the living.” 

Voldemort did not reply to that.

They stood there, awkwardly, each absorbed in his own thoughts, before Voldemort said, “I wonder if this is Severus’s idea. He has had notions of sex being an effective tool in spying and in making others pliant to your wishes. I suspect he has read one too many hardboiled spy novellas.”

Harry groaned and covered his face with his palms. He felt tired and at his wits’s end. How would he help his friends? It was Snape’s idea, yes. Harry had also believed though. Harry had believed that the magic and the soul would be sufficient lure to draw Voldemort into his bed. Then there was the power factor too. Fucking Harry would make Voldemort giddily happy, in knowing that he had fucked the prophecy hero who had been proclaimed to be his doom. 

He had not expected Voldemort to say no. The rain pounded on the roof. He dared look at Voldemort again. Voldemort’s eyes held a strange softness, as he watched the pulse at Harry’s throat. Harry gulped, and Voldemort shook his head, as if to clear the cobwebs from his mind.

“I will not go to war for you,” Voldemort said finally. He hesitated, and then nodded to himself, and reached across to trail his fingers down Harry’s scar, down his cheek, until they cupped his tense chin. 

Harry’s shoulders caved in failure, and he could not help the stricken sob that escaped him. 

"I will not go to war for you," Voldemort repeated. "I will keep you safe, for my sake. My magic touched yours first. My soul touched yours first. Take your body to someone else, Harry. Have a first that is not mine. It is all that is left, as you implied earlier."

Harry thought about that. He thought about Voldemort walking on the chalky cliffs railing against the sea, he thought about the woman who had taken him in her soft, warm, skilled mouth. He thought about how Voldemort had reacted. 

"You want me," he said softly, not wanting to draw Voldemort's wrath, not when it would serve him nothing. "I can give you myself. You can have me, as you wish, when you wish."

"I will not go to war for you," Voldemort said, for the third time. Somewhere a cock crowed to bring news of dawn. "I have willing partners that desire me. I have no use for a sacrificial lamb in my bed, trying to brave my touch for the sake of a futile cause. You are Antigone reincarnated, I suspect. What does it matter? I am no Creon. I will let you be. Keep your rituals, keep your causes, and I will have no part of them." 

Then he was gone, and the storm was no more.

——


	5. The Charioteer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Harry decides to take the reins of his life, though there are still one or two impossibilities standing in his way.

Snape came at one-thirty, instead of his usual three o’clock visit. Alarmed by this break of routine, Harry puttered about, to take his damp coat and hang it away, to pour him tea and to proffer him a plate of the sugary crumpets he would never admit liking. Harry did not consider himself a chef by any means, certainly, but he knew how to make Snape eat.

He doubted his late mother had known of Snape’s sweet tooth. He prided himself on his observational skills. For all that Hermione had called Harry’s spying on Snape over the years obsessive, some good had come of it, hadn’t it? 

Thinking of Hermione made him unsettled. Thinking of why Snape might be in his usual arm-chair, an hour or so early, made him unsettled. 

He reached backwards, to the flask of brandy that he kept handy for occasions like this, and poured a dash into his tea. Snape made a disgruntled, disapproving noise deep in his throat, but then firmly took the flask from Harry’s lax grip to pour himself some. 

Harry blinked. 

“You can’t alarm me more,” he confessed, as Snape scowled and drank down his steaming, brandy-infused tea. 

“Peace-talks,” Snape muttered. “Amelia Bones has managed to secure a treaty of sorts to be in place while her guerrilla factions negotiate with the Muggle government. Fudge is none too happy about her progress. So he has come out of his hiding hole in the arse-end of Derbyshire, and has asked the wizarding folk in Britain to gather at the Stonehenge on All Hallows’ Eve, where he will lead them in putting on a magnificent display as to why the wizarding world is great. He means to bedazzle the Muggles, to show them the mistake of their ways so far in treating the wizards as they have. Why stoop to a negotiation when you can win your war?”

They stared at each other over the tea. All Hallows’ Eve had changed their lives, all those years ago. And here they were, lost without Dumbledore, getting by with tea and crumpets and brandy, in Voldemort’s cage of protection. 

Voldemort had not asked anything of Harry, yet. That would change one day. What would be asked of him? Snape speculated Harry would be brought out as a figurehead once Fudge and Amelia had failed in bringing peace, once everyone had stopped believing that Dumbledore had a plan. Then they would hearken desperately to Harry, who had become, for better or worse, a shining manifestation of hope enshrined after the events at Godric’s Hollow in 1981.

“How do you know?” Harry asked.

He had asked Snape the same question before. Snape had not been forthcoming, as to his sources. Surely, Voldemort did not trust him, not after everything Snape had done in the past two decades. 

“Bellatrix Lestrange talks when she has been fucked hard,” Snape said, with a delicate sneer. Harry blinked and took a sip of tea. He needed more brandy. Snape was sleeping with Bellatrix. Harry had to hand it to him. He was fairly sure that he was not capable of running such risks, even if he loved Dumbledore very much and wanted to serve his cause. 

“You might get more valuable information if only you emulated my example,” Snape continued, in his usual, disappointed manner. 

“I have tried. I can’t really tie him down and have sex with him,” Harry said tiredly, raking his fingers through his hair. What did it say of him that he was more willing to consider sleeping with Voldemort, while frightened out of his wits at the prospect of fucking mad Bellatrix? “Look, even you have to see now that he just doesn’t want me.” 

“You should do something about your hair,” Snape said grumpily, eyeing Harry’s head as if it were a cause of great consternation. “Your eyes are bewitching. Use them.” 

Lily’s eyes. They had bewitched Snape once. Harry did not think they had the same effect on Voldemort. He had a suspicion that Voldemort preferred blond hair. 

“Do you think he slept with Regulus Black?” Harry asked. He had wondered a great deal about that. 

“He was straight as an arrow, just like your godfather,” Snape said darkly. “Shall we raise a toast to our fair nation, upon whose soil we shall never set foot again?” 

Harry finished his tea, dabbed his lips with his faded kerchief, and rose to his feet. Snape looked up at him expectantly. 

“Tell him to visit me.” 

Snape looked confused. Then his expression cleared up, and he asked cautiously, “The Roman way then?” 

He nodded his head abruptly and cut a hasty departure. 

The Roman Way? Harry needed Hermione to understand that. And he was going to try his utmost to get her to safety, to get everyone he loved to safety. Yes, he would fight Dumbledore’s war. He would fight Britain’s war. Before that, he had to save those he loved. 

——-

Incessant, abrupt rain thundered Voldemort’s none-too-pleased arrival at Harry’s threshold. Harry opened the door for him and took his red umbrella politely. 

“You interrupted my supper,” Voldemort informed him. 

It was only four in the afternoon. Harry was about to ask why Voldemort had supper at four, but decided to let his curiosity rest without answers. There was the smell of brandy lingering on his guest, as Harry found out to his discomfort when he stepped closer, bravely, determined. 

“That would be unwise,” Voldemort told him, with a sneer that even Snape would have been impressed by. 

Alcohol certainly did not help Voldemort’s temperament any. Drunk men were men with less inhibitions, men who had bid goodbye to common-sense. Harry took courage in that and took off his bright, red jumper, which had been once a Christmas gift from Mrs. Weasley, which he had been wearing when fleeing from Britain. Thinking of her made him steel himself. 

“I am drunk to my gills,” Voldemort said carefully, swaying about in a delicate dance of steps until he reached Harry’s sofa, and then he proceeded to pour himself onto it, looking one with the furniture at the end. 

“That is fine,” Harry said truthfully, slipping off his pink, fluffy indoor shoes. Dumbledore had once thought it a fine idea for a Christmas present, though he had refrained from gifting it. Harry had seen the product again at a small French market and had bought it. 

He shucked off his jeans next, and his boxers came down with them. Well, this certainly was much less frightening than it had initially seemed to be. Voldemort was watching him languidly, from the sofa, making no sound or move. 

“I know that you want me,” Harry said, with bravado, thinking hard and holding tight to the memories of how upset and needful Voldemort had been when Harry had gone off to see that prostitute, thinking of how Voldemort’s gaze had often lingered on Harry’s chest, thinking of Voldemort comparing him to Regulus Black, thinking of Voldemort showing off to him by all those daring, dashing maneuvers when they had been fleeing from the Muggles and their helicopters that had been spraying the air with magic-neutralising ions. 

“I am drunk to my gills,” Voldemort reiterated, his eyes straying wild over Harry’s body. “I can’t get it up for you, even if I did want you.” 

Harry did not play Quidditch anymore. Apart from the long walks he took, there was little exercise in his routine. Yet, there was greed in Voldemort’s gaze as it swept up and down, overlooking the flab that Harry saw each time when he inspected himself in the mirror. The honest appraisal and appreciation left Harry aroused, and he could not hide it from the man who looked at him. 

“You remind me of a sculpture of Augustus that I saw in Turkey once,” Voldemort said softly. 

“Augustus?” Harry asked, shivering in the cold. “Was the month of August named after him?” 

“Indeed,” Voldemort said. He crooked his finger at Harry, and Harry walked towards him, hoping very much that Voldemort would not see how shaken he was.

“Brave man,” Voldemort continued. Close to, the smell of brandy was overpowering. 

“How much did you have?” 

“Enough to ensure temporary oblivion.” 

“Why?” 

“Amelia Bones is dead,” Voldemort said carefully, watching Harry’s face. “Their headquarters was found and destroyed. Some were taken alive, and they have given up valuable information, about my existence, about Hogwarts, about Harry Potter, about Albus Dumbledore. Moody escaped with a few, fleeing south towards the Channel.”

“They killed her?” Harry asked, horrified. Madam Bones had been fair and just, frighteningly effective. Hermione had adored her. They had wanted her to win that election. 

“She fought to her death, I hear.” Voldemort shrugged. “I knew her. She wouldn’t have let herself be taken alive, Harry. She was a fierce woman.” 

Harry was still standing there, in shock, when Voldemort reached out to pull him down, so that he fell atop Voldemort clumsily, hitting sharp ribs, and eliciting a sharp gasp out of the man. 

“You are cold,” Voldemort noted, rubbing his hands briskly over Harry’s sides.

“Moody is trying to make it here,” Harry said, worried. “You loathe him. You have been trying to kill him for many years.”

“Preserving magical blood is above old griefs. He is not without his uses,” Voldemort said casually. “If he makes it to a French port, I will take him alive. If he is amenable to being used, I will use him. If he isn’t, the werewolves like tough flesh.” 

“Can I meet him first when he gets here?”

“If he gets here.” 

“He will,” Harry said wryly. “This is Mad-Eye Moody. His paranoia will keep him alive. He will make it out.”

Voldemort did not reply. His eyes were on the scar that had marked his fall, that had seen Harry sent to the Dursleys, that had inextricably bound them via prophecy and magic, that had marked Harry in the eyes of a world which had clung to saviours. The smell of brandy was intoxicating. The shock of Voldemort’s news, the brazenness of their position, the futility to his existence in France, and the need to find escape from all of it; each contributed to Harry’s daring kiss. Voldemort tasted of brandy and rain, and when Harry delved deeper still, he tasted pigeon and lemons, and then he tasted surrender, as Voldemort clung to him, pulling him closer, winding hands came to Harry’s waist. When Harry broke the kiss to catch his breath, Voldemort’s eyes were blown wide in desire. 

“You want me,” Harry said dumbly, because he could think of nothing else to say, because the feel of Voldemort’s pelvis against his was disconcerting, because Voldemort’s skittish touch at his waist was provocative as nothing else he had known in his handful of previous experiences.

“How cannot I want you?” Voldemort wondered drunkenly, his words slurring into each other, and he softly touched the nape of Harry’s neck. “When your mother died for you, stupid and brave woman that she was, all that you had left in this world was my soul, my magic. When I came back, all that I had to tie me to this existence was your living blood in my veins.”

And revenge, and bloodshed, and victory. Harry refrained from pointing all that out. He was riled up by Voldemort so casually referring to his mother’s murder. He did not say anything. He was not drunk. If Snape could fuck Bellatrix and play the spy for two decades, if Dumbledore had sacrificed so much without reproach, Harry could put up with this. He had got himself into this situation to save his friends, to get Voldemort attached to him. Voldemort wanted him. See, Voldemort had already agreed to let him talk to Mad-Eye first. This was working. He just needed to plod on. It wasn’t a hardship, though that was an aspect Harry tried not to think too deeply of, right then.

“You have not agreed before,” Harry said, half-asking, wondering if there was an explanation other than vulnerability. 

“You are inconveniently young and dewy-eyed,” Voldemort disparaged. “I have nursed lust, occasionally, for young men and women, but they had been cold-blooded murderers who had killed in my name already. You are so…clean.” Here Voldemort shook his head and looked away, with a pinch to his thin mouth, betraying his discomfort and displeasure at the state of matters. “Even when you are trying to seduce me so that I will be beholden to you by the pleasures of your attractive, nubile, willing body, you are still innocently transparent about all of your plotting and conniving. I assure you that this is not how Severus goes about sleeping his way through the Inner Circle. He charms and bewitches, seduces and ensnares.” 

“You slept with Regulus then!” Harry blurted out, his mind somehow failing process the entirety of Voldemort’s statement, and latching onto the conclusion of least import. He felt like Ron. Hermione would have accused him of having the emotional range of a teaspoon, he was sure. 

“Of course not,” Voldemort said, with a sniff. “Lusting after them is different from acting upon the lust. I don’t sleep with any of my recruits. That brings about conflict of interest. I am not the leader of a cult, Harry! Cults are about leaders sleeping with followers, and about orgies, and about sexual perversions of all sorts. I lead a revolution. The cause cannot be endangered by sleeping around with my recruits, despite what Severus has led you to believe.” 

So he had never fucked Bellatrix then. Harry blinked and looked at Voldemort, considering all that he had heard. Voldemort brought his palms to obscure his eyes and rubbed them, as if tired. Harry could hear mutterings about dewy-eyed blights that caused rain. 

“You cause the rain,” Harry said half-heartedly. “Ruining the grapes.” Snape talked a lot about the grapes. 

“So long and thanks for all the fish,” Voldemort muttered.

“What?” 

“A book, where there is a rain-maker who hates rain very much indeed,” Voldemort explained. “I despise rain and gloom and fog. I like the weather in the south of France. Britain is lost, Harry. Those who remain must either make it to Dumbledore’s protection or mine, or perish. The Muggles are running experiments on those they have captured. Science does not stop for humanitarian reasons. Yes, there is the Geneva Convention, but it will take many years before the other nations can comprehend the extent of the goings-on, and band together to vote against the current atrocities.”

“You truly think that we can’t do anything?” Harry asked, astounded. “Dumbledore has a plan, you know. He is communicating with Charlie Weasley in Romania, and with many others in Egypt and other countries. He has a plan.”

“He can save Britain then,” Voldemort said dismissively. “I will not fight that war for you, Harry. Not even the delights of your flesh can convince me to undertake that. I have my allies and income sources here. I am safe here. I have power. I offer refuge to those who come here and vow to keep my laws.”

Harry thought of what Voldemort had said, about experiments. His friends, so many of them, were there. The Weasleys and Hermione were there. What was Dumbledore’s plan? Did Alastor Moody know any of it? Why was Snape convinced that there was still hope to save the wizards who had been taken prisoners? 

Maybe it was the oppressive despair, maybe it was his helplessness to do anything, maybe it was the crushing realisation that those imprisoned were truly lost, maybe it was the way Voldemort’s legs had spread to accommodate Harry’s body, that he dared to grip Voldemort’s right hand and bring it to his waist, that he dared to insinuate a palm between Voldemort’s thighs, seeking uncertainly. 

“I suppose it can’t hurt,” Voldemort murmured, spreading his legs further and jutting his pelvis against Harry’s. “The rain has ruined the grapes. There won’t be wine this year.”

“I am a substitute for wine now?” Harry croaked, thoughts slipping unheeded as his senses took over in a way they hadn’t when he had been with the prostitute. 

He felt less inhibited. He could not hurt Voldemort. He wasn’t coercing his partner because of monetary incentives. Nobody cared. Everyone who mattered was across the Channel, a past that Harry could not save; there was no prophecy or army left.

“Champagne perhaps,” Voldemort allowed, dragging his hands down Harry’s chest. “Caviar from Russia. Spices from India. You are a prize, a delicacy, a victory - oh, I can taste Dumbledore’s horror in your mouth when I kiss you.”

Harry kissed him deftly before Voldemort started in earnest, before Voldemort could mention his parents. 

When he broke the kiss next, Voldemort’s eyes were lustrous and keen, and he asked, scratching Harry’s back lightly, making Harry arch into the sensation, “Do you mind very much if I take you to bed? My old limbs creak on this sofa.” 

Harry’s bed-clothes were red, and had golden lions embossed on them. 

Voldemort did not notice that, not even when the egotistic, attention-craving lions started tumbling around. They would not calm until Harry came all over them, the result of one of the French shop-keepers pranking him in retaliation for not speaking French. 

Voldemort pushed him down on the covers and swept atop him, in a sinuous, efficient movement that reminded Harry of George Weasley’s beautifully smooth landings on the Quidditch Pitch. Harry shook his head to get rid of that thought, and brought his fingers to Voldemort’s robes, wresting them off. 

“Fiery, much like your-”

Harry kissed that sentence away. It was going to be hard work, he could tell. Men weren’t talkers, or that is what Hermione had said irritably once or twice after nights with Ron. Many of the girls had chimed in with their agreement. Voldemort, predictably, wouldn’t shut up, pausing only for breaths and kisses, and interspersed little bites on Harry’s chest. 

He had a liking for Harry’s chest. Harry could not see why, but who was he to complain of that lavish attention bestowed on his skin? He reciprocated as he could, grabbing and touching, kissing and licking, and pulling Voldemort for kisses long. 

“You are unpredictable!” Voldemort exclaimed. “I cannot see what your fingers will do next!” 

He did not sound unhappy about that. Harry wondered how to take the first compliment in a sexual setting he had received. Yes, it was from Voldemort, but the implications of all that were firmly shovelled away into a neat, little box of denial to be never looked at. 

“What do you like?” he asked, feeling bolder after Voldemort’s compliment, after seeing how Voldemort moved easily into his touches. 

“This and that,” Voldemort said dismissively, bending to press many kisses on Harry’s chest again. “I should take you to that sculpture of Augustus in Turkey.”

Harry was about to comment on Voldemort’s obsession with statues of dead men, when Voldemort began rocking against him with precise, regular movements. 

“Oh!” 

Voldemort’s composure cracked from concentration to allow a smug smile, before he swooped down to kiss Harry, biting his lips hard, and licking away the blood with relish. 

Later, as they lay there panting, Voldemort asked, “Why do your lions gambol around our cocks?” 

Yes, well, Harry was not going to explain their perversions. He gathered Voldemort to him, and hummed, and patted the sweat-coated body, much like how he had seen Petunia send Dudley off to sleep, many years ago. It worked.


	6. Gyges

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Harry does some diplomacy on a boat, in a bed, and in a theater.

Waking with someone for the first time in his life was a more surreal experience than Harry had once imagined it to be. He had fantasised a romantic picture of Ginny’s tousled curls lying askew across his chest, of her soft breath tickling his skin, of her lovely form enveloped in his strong embrace. Here he was then, with Voldemort at the other side of the bed, and there was no skin contact, and the only sound was the singing of the quails outside. Voldemort slept like a corpse, with his hands folded across his thin chest, his countenance stern, and his eyes scrunched shut. He gnashed his teeth in his sleep. Harry dared reach with his right hand to draw the coverlet up Voldemort’s exposed chest, since it seemed somehow obscene to watch the gentle rise and fall with Voldemort’s breathing. The gesture was enough to jostle him out of his muddled mind, and he hastily rose to leave the room, to start his daily ablutions, and to ground himself with a pot of tea.

He had settled himself after a shower, in his cosy armchair, wearing his coziest jumper and jeans, with copious quantities of tea, when Voldemort meandered out, nude still, and plopped down on the couch before him. Harry awkwardly brought the tea-cup to obscure his vision of Voldemort’s cock and balls.

“We had sex.”

Was that a question or a rhetorical statement? Harry blinked and sipped his tea. Why had he shucked off his clothes and seduced a drunken man? Oh, Snape had said something about buying slack to his leash. Wasn’t that it? Only, Voldemort hadn’t been half-bad. There had no torture or blood. 

“It was better than haggis,” Voldemort continued, spreading his legs, and slowly draping one over the neck of the couch, and placing the other flat on the ground. Harry put aside the teacup with a clatter and stood up. 

“I found it better than haggis as well,” Harry admitted. 

He loved haggis with turnips and potatoes, and had looked forward to the days they had served it at Hogwarts. What had his life come to, that he found sex with Voldemort better than one of the most delicious dishes crafted by mankind? 

Sunlight washed Voldemort into softness. Harry watched him carefully. The rain had stopped sometime during the night. The rain had stopped!

“The rain has stopped!” he exclaimed. 

As if on cue, Voldemort looked away and cleared his throat. There was discomposure on his features. He quickly waved his hand, and his robes came flying to cover up his nudity. 

“I have other engagements,” he muttered, and rose up from his comfortable pose, and made a hasty exit, taking the rains with him, leaving Harry alone behind in a room that seemed to suddenly shrink and suffocate him with the reality of what they had done.

——-

Snape’s expectant expression looked unlike any other face he had made upon seeing Harry. What their lives had come to! 

“He agreed to let me talk to Moody first,” Harry offered quickly, before Snape attempted Legilimency and unearthed the sordid mess he had got himself into. 

“Good!” Snape crowed, jubilant. “I hope you continue your streak of purposefulness.” He sobered up, and said, “Albus once told me that true heroism is not that of song and tale, but that of sacrifices unspoken and unseen.” 

Harry wondered if sleeping with Bellatrix was a sacrifice. He felt uncomfortable on seeing Snape’s sympathetic expression. Did Snape think they had something in common? A great suffering, nobly undertaken for the greater good? It had not been suffering, at least for Harry, and there had been no involvement of any greater purpose than base lust. Why did he lust after Voldemort? It must have been one of the oddities of their stupid bond. Why else would he? He had not lost his erection even after Voldemort had casually alluded to his mother’s murder. 

“Lily would be proud of you,” Snape offered, with exceptionally bad timing, that Harry would have suspected him of poking about in his mind if not for the fact that Snape was in a genuinely sympathetic mood.

“Thanks,” Harry muttered, and poured them more tea, and moved the plate of sugar-sprinkled biscuits towards his sweet-toothed guest.

——

The days that followed were difficult for Harry. The sea was calm and the breeze soothing. He missed the roughness of the North Sea and the biting cold of the English winter. His sole visitor was Snape. He missed dearly his friends. He walked the terraced paths through the village, past rows of houses painted bright blue and rose, and all the beauty of the Mediterranean was lost on him. He drank provincial wine, and supped on fresh bread and cheese, but his stomach revolted frequently. Even brandy refused to knock him out for a sound night’s sleep. 

It did not rain even once.

Why had he slept with his parents’ murderer for nothing? There was no viable excuse to justify himself. He had gained nothing; no information, no freedom, no resources, and no ally in Voldemort. 

He waited, impatiently, frightened, for news of Moody. It granted him a veneer of purpose, a mask of delusion that what he had done bettered something for those he loved and cared for. He clung desperately to that, and shoved away the terrible implications of what he had done. 

——

Moody and his rag-tag band of survivors were shelled upon as they neared the territorial waters of France. The skies were full of planes, and Harry stood there, on a waiting boat, much like how Snape had waited for them once, and clung to a shaft in fear and worry, and closed his ears tightly to stop the sound of the mortar. 

The French Aurors, blissfully ensconced in Voldemort’s puppet government, struck back, and Moody started directing his men to take shelter beneath the already dead and severely wounded, and Harry realized in a sickening manner where the concept of human fodder had come in. It began raining then, severely, and the storm took the course off the planes, and Harry nearly cried in relief as Moody’s boat made it into French waters. The planes hung like hyenas at the borders, but ventured no further. 

Harry rushed forward as the little boat bumped up against his, and ran to throw down ropes to help the survivors clamber up. 

“Harry!” Tonks screamed. He had not recognised her. She had lost a good chunk of her face, there was severe scarring, she was skeletal, and her cropped hair was mousy. She fell into his embrace and cried as if her world had ended, and maybe in many ways it had. He felt helpless but he held her together as best as he could, and tried not to avert his eyes from the carnage of shelled-down corpses piled high in Moody’s boat. Then his gaze turned to the survivors, the wounded, the weary, and the wary. They hunkered about, watching him with unease, and there was malice crafted of long vigils, no resources or allies, and little hope. He had been their savior, their eyes accused, and what had he done for them? Harry flinched and averted his eyes again. 

When Moody himself limped over, Harry gently led down Tonks to a hammock, and steeled himself. 

“Taken up with him, have you?” Moody snarled. “Can’t blame you for it. It was slaughter back there. I hope to the Founders that he is better.” 

“He is,” Harry swore fervently. “He knows who the enemy is. Please, you are safe now.” 

“He will have me killed, boy!” Moody spat. “How many of his have I killed? Rescuing the boat was good PR, but you think he will let me step on land that side?” 

“He won’t,” Harry said softly, and wondered why he believed Voldemort’s lust-fuelled proclamation of amnesty. “I won’t let that happen. We have lost enough. We need to rebuild fast, to be ready for Dumbledore.” 

Moody’s face twisted into pity, and he said in a hushed voice, “The last I heard, right before we escaped, was that Fudge sold information about Hogwarts and Dumbledore to the Muggle government.” 

“The bastard!” 

“Life isn’t pretty there, boy, and I don’t blame anyone for selling secrets.” 

He wanted to ask about Ron and Hermione. Seeing Moody, seeing Tonks, seeing the rest of them, his courage faltered. If Moody did not even blame Fudge for selling out, how bad had matters become? 

They settled into uneasy silence as the boat drew closer to shore. Snape was there, at the head of an official-looking party. Harry cleared his throat and moved to the head of the boat. Nothing dramatic happened. No further tragedy ensued. Snape corralled them off the boat in his usual, calm, didactic tones, and they formed a straggling queue to get through the customs and immigration posts. Harry waited off to the side, and watched the Aurors bring in the bodies from the carnage on the sea. At least they would be buried properly. One of the corpses, as they swept past him bearing it, stared at him with eyes wide open, and he let out a soft gasp as he realized who it was.

“Boy fought bravely, for a long time. Fought his way out of London to our base. Was with Amelia,” Moody muttered, coming to join him. “She had to order him out with the rest of us who escaped that raid. Was never the same afterwards. Rabid and kill-hungry, reckless.” 

Harry wondered where Dean and Neville were. Did he dare to know? He watched Seamus’s grubby red hair be tousled by the French breeze, and he turned his eyes to the cliffs of Dover, and wondered what horrors yet lay behind them. 

“Where is your wand, Potter?”

——

Voldemort’s bastion in Paris was an airy amphitheater, in the French Ministry. There were circles of seating hewn in beautiful marble, and the bright sunlight from above coated them light gold. Harry sat there with Snape, with many others, as the deposition of Moody began. Voldemort himself was inconspicuously seated at one of the ends, in the front row, and to his right was a plump, well-groomed Lucius Malfoy, who looked a far cry from the starving, hard-living, scrawny men whom they had rescued. 

“You are a keg of unexploded angst,” Snape muttered. “I am sure Bella can feel you at the other corner of the amphitheater. Moody’s deposition is going to be rough and gory, Potter. You should leave if you can’t stand that.” 

“He made me forget my magic, my wand!” Harry exclaimed in a low voice. “You did not bring it up. You knew!” 

“I value my life. I value your safety. I value the Dark Lord’s protection. It stood to reason to fall in with his wishes on the matter. It was only a spell of suggestion, Potter. Hardly his fault that your mind is easily manipulated.”

Harry glared at him, fuming at the sheer audacity that Snape had! Oh, why was he surprised? Snape did what suited him, when it suited him! And Voldemort was hardly the most scrupulous man in France. 

Yet, Voldemort had not Obliviated all memories of Harry’s ability to cast magic. It was trickier, Harry realised, what the man had done. He had not tampered with any of Harry’s memories. He had merely suggested that Harry not think of them, that Harry not think of casting magic, while being in a world where both his visitors cast magic and spoke of it regularly and without constraint. It was a combination of good old Muggle-fashioned solitary confinement and that suggestion spell. 

Harry fumed. 

Oh, was that why he had found Voldemort arousing? Was that another spell of suggestion? Harry glared across at Voldemort. It began raining. Then Harry realised that there was a shield of protection, transparent, to keep the amphitheater safe from adverse elements. Torches flared to life in a thousand brackets, in concentric circles from the top of the domed walls to the bottom. It was a magnificent building.

Moody came in, with two French Aurors flanking him, and he creaked up to the dais. In the light of the many torches, his sunken face looked alien. 

Lucius Malfoy leaned forward, and asked, “Are you here of your own will, to provide us valuable information about the current events in Britain?” 

“Yes.” 

“Do you swear on your life, on your magic, on the lives of your comrades, to be truthful? Do you swear that there shall be no lies, of speech or of omission, in your testimony?”

“Yes.”

Binding white light arced across the dome, to where Moody stood. He did not flinch. 

Then he began his account. Scribes took notes furiously, and Snape’s palm came to grip Harry’s thigh in restraint. Harry realised that he had nearly stood up, that he had reared to speak, that he was crying. Moody gave names; names of the dead, names of the taken, names of those whose fate was unknown. Moody gave horrific tales of what had been perpetrated upon their people. In the stands, many wept openly. Some of them had loved ones in Britain. Some others had fled from the atrocities. Yet others wept because of the inhumanity of it all. The torches flickered low, the downpour continued relentless, and Harry cried with the rest of them as Moody’s speech closed the door to hope and idealism, and sealed it shut behind them.

As Moody’s words petered out, he stood there hunched, an old man who had fought beyond what was able, and his shadow on the walls was greater than him. Voldemort rose then, and Moody’s face for the first time betrayed fear. Harry rose too, despite Snape’s death grip, fierce in his intention to protect. The weary, broken audience watched them. 

“On the behalf of the government of France, and on the behalf of the European Magical Consortium, I welcome you to France, and we offer your contingent amnesty and refuge. We cannot be divided anymore.” Voldemort walked to Moody, and when he crossed Moody’s shadow, he was a pale streak of white against dancing black. 

“You want me to fight this war again. You want the poor men I led here to fight this war again.” 

“No, we shan’t be fighting any war unless it comes knocking at our doorsteps,” Voldemort stated calmly. “We shall be prepared. We shall be watchful. We shall welcome refugees. We shall not go to war unless our sovereignty is provoked.”

“You don’t think you can win!” Moody exclaimed, aghast. 

Voldemort stared at him levelly, until Moody cleared his throat, and said gruffly, “We thank you for your offer of refuge. We accept the amnesty. We look forward to building our lives in France. If war comes here, we will fight.”

The audience cheered in relief. They had not wanted the veteran commander who had led such a daring escape to be sentenced to death. Voldemort valued his public relations highly. Harry could see collective relief in the front row, where the Death Eaters sat. It would not have looked good if they had sentenced Moody to death. People started pouring out of the amphitheater in droves of excited chatter. Harry watched Lucius Malfoy waddle over to his fellow Death Eaters and exchange greetings. 

“He is watching you. What did you do now?” 

“I exist,” Harry muttered. Snape glared at him, no doubt unhappy about that throwback comment, and took his leave sharply in a flurry of dark robes. He would come around, Harry knew, and he deserved it for being complicit in Voldemort’s crafty idea of suggesting that Harry forget about the fact that he was a wizard. 

Now it was only the two of them in that large amphitheater. Voldemort was a statue, patiently waiting, a natural extension of the marble stones. Harry walked down, trying to be brave and fierce, trying to not let Voldemort see that he had been weeping throughout Moody’s speech, trying to focus purely on the anger he felt at having his magic taken away. Perhaps it was the raging storm outside, perhaps it was the calmness on Voldemort’s features, perhaps it was the eldritch light of the thousand torches playing with their shadows, Harry found the boldness to ask, as Lucius Malfoy had asked Moody.

“Are you here of your own will?” 

Voldemort blinked, and his calmness shattered to leave confusion in its wake. He recouped fast, as Harry knew he would, and smiled coyly, and said, “I consent.” 

“Do you swear on your life, on your magic to be truthful? Do you swear that there shall be no lies, of speech or of omission, in your testimony?”

Voldemort’s eyes narrowed and his fingers tightened on his stick of yew. Seeing it, sensing it, feeling it, Harry’s magic remembered its torn wounds, of his holly snapped by the Muggles, of how empty he had felt then. Grief crashed over him, as magic familiar and yet unlike smothered the air between them. 

“It was for your own good,” Voldemort offered. “I had no time to babysit an angry young man hell-bent on ill-advised rescues or revenge. There was nothing you could have done. There is nothing you can do now.”

“How would you know?” Harry asked, angrily. “You have been wrong about me every time in our association.” 

Harry’s anger found its match in Voldemort’s then. With restraint, Voldemort said quietly, “I have been right about you as well.”

“You just wanted to keep your stupid horcrux safe! That is what everything has been about.”

“Then I would have cared little as to what became of its vessel,” Voldemort pointed out, suddenly cheerful and self-assured again. Harry wanted to throttle him. “I made sure you were situated in the best part of France, that you lacked for nothing. I let you meet Moody. I let you come here today. I have not taken away your freedom or your memories. I simply did not care to see the ramifications of your recklessness, when your losses had been fresh and foremost in your head. Now you are more settled in your acceptance of how futile any such attempt would be.”

“Did I want to fuck you because you suggested that too?” Harry spat.

There was an ominous burst of thunder above. 

“Dear me,” Voldemort said, looking up. 

“Answer me!” Harry snarled, and took a step closer, his hands balled into fists. He had not felt this visceral in many years, not after he had left Dudley and Piers behind. He wanted to smash Voldemort’s stupid cheekbones and gouge those eyes out. He wanted to tie him down and fuck him bloody until he begged and cried.

“No, I did not suggest it,” Voldemort said finally, not looking at him. 

“Good!” Harry shouted, and surged forward, just as lightning struck the skies above. He hit Voldemort’s loose wrist with the flat of his hand, and the wand of yew went flying away, into the seats at the front row. Before Voldemort could recoup, Harry kissed him, Harry pushed him down on the marble dais and splayed himself on top, Harry tore apart his robes to get to his neck and bit down his thin chest. 

“Harry!” 

“Don’t you dare talk!” Harry shouted again, vindictive, and needful, and crying. He brought his hands around Voldemort’s thin throat and squeezed lightly in warning. Voldemort stilled at that, though his fast breathing betrayed his fear. Harry exulted in that and bent to bite his left ear, to worry at it until it bled, until Voldemort’s gasps had turned into hoarse screams. Voldemort’s breathing sharpened further still, he spoke words garbled, and his hands came to clutch Harry’s arms tight. 

“Stay still!” Harry exclaimed, gentling his touches and bites. 

Voldemort shook his head, and brought his right hand between them as if to push Harry away, and then began hyperventilating. There was a crash as the magic on the ceiling gave away, and torrents of water sluiced down upon them, and Harry tried to calm the thrashing form beneath him with words and touches. At the end, out of ideas, he did what he had seen Petunia do with Dudley once, and scooped Voldemort to his chest and sang nonsensical nursery rhymes about Hickory Dickory Dock. They were soaked to their bones, and there was blood everywhere, and Harry was crying too, aghast at what he had done. Voldemort’s thrashing and flailing finally quieted, and he collapsed against Harry in exhaustion. The rain lightened at that, and Harry’s headache eased too. There was blood from Voldemort’s ear, blood from the gouges Harry’s nails had made on Voldemort’s neck and chest, blood from Harry’s scar as it faithfully channeled Voldemort’s fear, anger and pain. 

“Accio!” Harry tried, and failed. 

“Accio!” He tried again, and failed. 

“Accio!” He tried, and wasn’t third time the charm? He failed.

Voldemort stirred and reached out with his fingers, and his wand came flying to them. He brought it tentatively to his ear and sung as Snape had once sung to heal Malfoy. The wound ceased bleeding and the skin returned to normalcy. 

“There is more on your neck,” Harry said tiredly, sadly. 

“I know,” Voldemort replied. He did not sound particularly angry. 

“I don’t know what came over me,” Harry said, gingerly fingering the bruises at Voldemort’s neck. “I am very sorry.”

“I know,” Voldemort replied. “Why are you sorry?”

“I shouldn’t have done that.”

Voldemort hummed. They stayed there in silence for many minutes, until Harry’s leg had gone to sleep, numbed by the cold rain and by Voldemort’s weight. Then Voldemort stirred again, and brought his fingers to touch Harry’s scar. Pleasure coursed through him, despite everything. 

“I have to repair the roof,” Voldemort told him, sitting up despite his exhaustion. “It is my Gyges, Plato's ring. Stay here. I will take you to your home afterwards.”

When they arrived at Harry’s doorstep, he placed his hand on Voldemort’s, and asked, “Stay tonight.”

The rain let up then.


	7. The Sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Harry receives a message, Snape does a good deed, and Voldemort expounds on existential miseries.

Harry woke first, and quietly watched the sleeping man at the other side of his bed. The only sounds were that of their breathing and the steady pitter-patter of the rain outside. He ran his fingers through his hair and slipped out of the cosy bed. 

He made his pot of tea, fetched a cuppa, and turned his steps to the threshold of his house. There, he sat on the first step before the door, and set about to watching the rain, and to keep an eye out in case Snape stopped by earlier than was his wont. 

He wondered what Snape did to occupy himself. Surely, all that was in his routine could not be only visiting Harry and fucking Bellatrix Lestrange? Did he teach? Did he brew? Did he help with the immigration of refugees as he had on the day Moody’s boat had docked? Did he visit his former students regularly? Was that why he knew about Draco’s daily doings? Did he have channels of communication open with Bill Weasley or with Beauxbatons? 

Thinking of Beauxbatons reminded him of Hagrid. Hagrid was at Hogwarts still, under Dumbledore’s protection. Fudge had given away many of Dumbledore’s secrets. Did the Muggles now know about Hagrid too? Harry imagined that they must be intrigued by giants, werewolves, centaurs and other Magical Creatures. Unlike Hagrid’s benevolence and pure curiosity, Harry knew that their scientists would run inhumane experiments on the captive Magical Creatures. 

He shuddered and shut down his thoughts as they turned to Remus. None of the captive werewolves had suffered a kind fate, according to Moody’s bleak testimony. He had said that silver bullets were the least of the torments inflicted upon them. 

Harry rubbed his eyes fiercely on his sleeve and glared at the rain. He had to focus on the living. He had to focus on what was there still left to save. He had to focus on what was within reach. Voldemort had said that from the beginning, and now Moody had stated the same. Unless Dumbledore came through with his customary brilliance and fortitude, all that was beyond the Channel was lost to Harry. Was this how Jewish refugees in Albania and the United States had thought during the great war, about their relatives and friends in Germany who had been trapped under the oppressive regime? Was this how the few Chinese who had escaped the Japanese persecution in Nanjing had thought of their families left behind? Harry was not Hermione, or Dumbledore. He could not see above it all, see the larger picture, see beyond the persecuted and the persecutors, to a grander tale of humanity and human history in the making. He could only grieve, and resent, and pray. 

The Muggle government must be looking for this last bastion. What measures had Dumbledore taken? Did he have a secret keeper for Hogwarts? Harry was confident in Dumbledore’s head for strategy. The Headmaster would not lose a war he wanted to win. He had Minerva there, and Filius, and all the bright, young students he would have by now prepared to be fine soldiers. Harry had faith in the Castle too. Hogwarts had defended her inhabitants for thousands of years. The stones were watchful. He had to hope.

The door creaked open behind him, and he shoved over. Voldemort poured himself beside Harry with his customary laconic grace, and extricated Harry’s cup of lukewarm tea from his grasp and took a sip, with his customary rudeness and disregard for Harry’s boundaries. Boundaries. That was such a Hermione concept. 

“Sleep well?” he asked his guest, turning to face him. 

For someone who had been mauled and bruised, and then rained upon a great deal, Voldemort looked remarkably dapper, sitting there perched on Harry’s porch, drinking Harry’s tea, wearing Harry’s ugly tartan jumper which he had brought at a Scottish fair in Provence because it had reminded him of Minerva. He had never found the guts to wear it; its ugliness was beyond even his sartorial sensibilities. The combination of the tartan with the torn, black robes beneath, and Harry’s pink tea-cup, and Voldemort’s chalk-white pallor, should have been an eyesore, but Voldemort managed to look nonchalantly pleasing to Harry’s eyes nonetheless. 

“You must have dug into the back of my wardrobe to get that,” Harry muttered, reaching out and straightening the squished collar. 

“The rest of your wardrobe was too bland for my tastes,” Voldemort said equitably, blowing on cold tea in his usual display of daily weirdness. 

“You wear black robes everyday,” Harry pointed out. “I don’t think I even have anything in black.”

“I accessorise!” Voldemort exclaimed. “I have a red umbrella, a beige gourd, and periwinkle blue drawers. On Bastille Day, I coat my wand in white, blue and red sparkles!” 

Harry was glad that he didn’t have any tea to choke on. He eyed Voldemort with trepidation. Had he managed to get high already? 

Finally, because he had nothing else to say, he said, “I like those periwinkle blue drawers on you.” 

“You do?” Voldemort beamed. “They are the same colour as Dumbledore’s eyes.” 

“I see,” Harry said weakly, and returned his attention to the rain. 

“We didn’t have sex,” Voldemort announced. 

“No,” Harry agreed. 

“It was still better than haggis,” Voldemort said pleasantly, as if Harry had lived up to some standard in his head. He bent over and kissed Harry’s eyelids, one after the other, beamed upon him once again, and vanished, taking with him all his bruises, Harry’s tartan jumper, his torn robes, Harry’s pink tea-cup, and the rain. 

They hadn’t had sex. They had slept in the same bed, and it had been better than haggis. Harry agreed with all of that. It frightened him. 

On the wet cobblestone pavement, a determined hen was crossing, with her chicks in tow. They looked a sight, their feathers stuck to their bodies, huddling into each other because of the cold.

——

That was how Snape found him, perched upon his doorsill, basking in the beautiful golden Mediterranean afternoon, warm and sleepy. 

“I smell rank, filthy teenager,” Snape declared. 

Harry shrugged and rose to his feet, and opened the door to let Snape in. Then he made his way to the kitchen to put on a new pot of tea. 

“How?” he asked. 

“Potter, I have had the singular misfortune to be in a dungeon with rank, filthy teenagers for many sorry years of my existence. They wank, they angst, they wank again. It is a vicious cycle of orgasm and angst.”

Harry could not help a laugh at that. He had not thought of it in those terms when he had been a student, but he supposed that to adults it could very well become an interminable cycle of dealing with the ups and lows of teenagers. 

Snape had a sharp nose. He knew Harry well. Harry had indeed got himself off after Voldemort had fallen asleep, too confused, conflicted and aroused by what he had done in the amphitheater. 

“Moody’s stuff-” he said lamely. “I can’t get it out of my head. I had difficulty falling asleep.” 

Snape sobered up at that, and silence fell on them. Harry cleared his throat and got out his tin of sweet biscuits. 

“It has affected everyone. Why, even the Dark Lord has been affected. We saw him this morning wearing tartan and playing the bagpipes, badly.” 

“What?” Harry asked, wondering if he had misheard. 

“He does have odd reactions to stress, not unlike Albus,” Snape said fondly. Harry wondered if the fondness was for Dumbledore, or for Voldemort. “The Bloody Christmas of 1976, as we called it, had many casualties. The Dark Lord and Abraxas Malfoy threw a ball, to cheer up the cadre, to infuse some optimism and conviction in the cause. I remember panicking when I saw the Dark Lord dressed up as Cupid and shooting darts randomly. It was his idea of improving the morale, I suppose.”

“Were they sleeping together?” Harry asked, remembering the times when their names had come up together in conversations with Dumbledore.

“No,” Snape said, with conviction. “They were as Rome’s infamous Gang of Three, except they were only two. Power-sharing is not the Dark Lord’s strength, but they managed, better than the Gang of Three, to keep their operations level and smooth, without letting their personal agendas and ambitions be the ruin of them. I believe they were codependent, and enamoured of each other obsessively, but they were cold and pragmatic by nature, and they knew they could not build what they wanted to build if they added a conflict of interest.” 

Ah, hadn’t Voldemort said something about cults and conflicts of interest once? Harry had to think about this more, later, to see how his involvement with Voldemort affected his beliefs and causes. 

“You should get a new wand,” Snape said then, changing the subject. “If you won’t seduce him, you need to go back to your normal mode of operations, to be reckless when the whim takes you. For that, I recommend a wand.” 

“I haven’t been reckless in a long time,” Harry chided him. “I was a clerk at the patent office, before all of this.” 

Snape had no reply for that. Harry thought he was different from Ron, who wanted to be famous, from Hermione, who wanted to leave the world a better place than she had found it, from Snape, who wanted to be in thick of things. Harry had only wanted to be normal, to be loved by a few, to be left alone. He had been happy to let Dumbledore take charge, to move himself away from all that saviour nonsense. 

“At least, having a wand will keep me dry, what with Voldemort’s tendency to carry the rain all about the place,” Harry relented. 

——

Snape’s wandmaker was in Versailles, nestled between a butcher and a seamstress, a crochety man who glared at them both when they stepped through his door. 

“Hi,” Harry said, his enthusiasm quickly snuffled out by the wandmaker’s glare. Was he part goblin? Something about him reminded Harry of the goblins at Gringotts. 

“They broke destiny when they broke the wand,” the wandmaker croaked.

Snape cleared his throat and nudged Harry forward, out of his shock. 

“His wand was of holly, with a core of phoenix,” Snape informed the wandmaker. “Perhaps a suitable replacement?” 

If destiny had been broken, perhaps what remained was only the ordinariness and normalcy that Harry craved? He stepped forward, and did not flinch when the wandmaker cast a spell at him.

It was a spell of many colours, lifting him out of his body, leaving him a mean spirit amidst all the violent, turbulent magic of the tens of thousands of wands about him, leaving him helpless and alone, though Snape was there, trying and failing to summon him back into his body lying prone and blank of soul on the shabby carpet beneath, leaving him futilely begging the wandmaker, mute of voice and presence, to cease the pain of becoming separated from his mortal form. Was this how Voldemort had felt at Godric’s Hollow, and for a decade afterwards? Harry screamed in agony, though there was none to heed him, though there was none to aid him. The many colours of the wands enveloped him, and their cores became creatures from which they had been extracted, and there were griffins and dragons and unicorns roaring at him, charging at him, and he screamed once more. Roots choked him, and large trees of holly and ironwood, of mahogany and cypress, tore their way to glorious foliage through parts of him, making him bleed, making him rend, making him disappear. He heard his mother’s voice, soothing and full of love, from farther away, and then it drew nearer. He surrendered, looking eagerly forward to the release from pain. What mattered it to him that he had no destiny anymore? He would back with her again. Then woke in him a longing, fierce, and it smelled of rain, and there was periwinkle and black enveloping him tight, and all the trees withered and fell away, and all the creatures attacking him wailed and vanished, and his mother’s voice faded into a distant echo, and he was on the shabby carpet, hoarsely screaming, and Snape was beside him kneeling, casting spells of healing to ease his pain, and above them stood the old man with a wand in his palms, outstretched towards Harry with reverence. 

“Once the wand chose you to make its destiny, Harry Potter,” the wandmaker croaked. “Now you have chosen the wand to make your destiny.”

Harry, propped up to a seated position by Snape, gingerly received the wand. It flowed into his hands, into his heart, into his very soul, taking up spaces that had been left hollow and forgotten for all his life that he had not even known of their existence, mopping up his long and lonely years of abuse and deprivation, of his griefs and mourning, of his pain and desolation, leaving only the strangest serene calm. He belonged, finally. 

“Olive,” Snape remarked, in wonder. “Conciliation.”

“What is its core?” Harry asked, curious. 

“I don’t know,” the wandmaker said, though his eyes gleamed. 

Snape was about to say something, when the door burst open, and Bellatrix Lestrange stood there. She looked well-kept and groomed for the first time in Harry’s memory, and it suited her more than it suited Malfoy, and Harry wondered if Snape was that good a fuck. 

“The Dark Lord summoned Potter,” she said to Snape, not gracing Harry with a glance. Harry was fine with her ignoring him. He focused on his thin,new wand, and asked the wand-maker, “How much do we owe you?”

“Nothing. I saw something that I hadn’t seen before,” the wand-maker said, turning his back to them, and ambling off to the door that led to the back of his shop. 

“Now!” Bellatrix commanded, and Snape hastily leapt to his feet, and pulled Harry up. Well, there was no confusion about who wore the pants in that dynamic, Harry thought with a grin. Bellatrix grabbed Snape, and touched a port-key, and off they were to Paris. 

Harry was rushed into a large mansion, through many corridors and bedecked halls, until they reached a pair of double doors. Bellatrix knocked once, opened the doors, and shoved Harry inside with a stern glare. 

“What happened to you?” Harry exclaimed, forgetting all about his new wand, rushing to the large bed where Voldemort lay sweating and prone. Harry placed his palm on the clammy forehead, and Voldemort’s eyes fluttered open and tried to focus in vain. “Whatever happened to you?” 

There was no reply. Shattered, though he did not know why, Harry slipped between the sweat-sodden sheets and dragged the shaking body to him. 

The wand pulsed in his other hand and he felt instinct take over reason, and he placed the wand to Voldemort’s breast, and wished, “Be well.” 

Perhaps it was only wishful thinking, but Harry sensed the fever breaking. Voldemort’s harsh breathing softened into the steady rhythm of sleep. Harry lay awake there, feeling calm, despite the situation. 

——

When he woke, his wand was in Voldemort’s hands, and Voldemort was curiously inspecting it, and there was a mixture of ironic amusement and alarm on Voldemort’s wan features.

“Better?” Harry croaked, reaching out to place his palm on Voldemort’s forehead to check if the fever lingered. 

“This is an odd wand, Harry,” Voldemort said. 

“Why?” Harry asked, sitting up, and secretly delighted when Voldemort pillowed his head against Harry’s chest and leaned back to look at the wand again. 

“Let me show you,” Voldemort suggested, giving the wand back. And he placed his fingers on Harry’s scar. It pulsed with pleasure, and a faint echo of the pleasure pulsed through the wand as well, and it emitted soft golden sparks. 

“What is that?” Harry asked, suddenly knowing that something had gone very wrong, thinking back to the wandmaker’s cryptic words and gleaming eyes of knowing. "Snape called it a wand of conciliation."

“Olive. Conciliation. Growing strong in the sunshine. How apropos! Something that I haven’t seen before,” Voldemort said, echoing the wandmaker’s words. “Your wand has no core. Ah, but that is not true.” He hummed and said carefully, “Your wand has my horcrux as its core.” 

“How can that be?” Harry asked, shocked. “I can still feel you in my scar. Besides, can you put a human soul in a wand?”

“I am not proficient in wandlore, Harry,” Voldemort said tiredly, rubbing Harry’s scar in a to and fro motion, reminding Harry of how he wanked, making him uncomfortable because he was thinking pervertedly of a sick man, because they were discussing something significant and serious. “My best explanation is that you chose it. There are rare occasions throughout our history where a wizard has called a wand to him, imbuing it with his magic. It is sacrificial magic, and closely tied to the sort that protected you once. In this case, you sacrificed a part of you that was powerful and…” Voldemort hesitated. “A part of you that was powerful and mattered to you.”

“A part of me?” It made him uncomfortable to think of Voldemort’s horcrux as a part of him. 

“A part of you,” Voldemort said seriously. “Have you not wondered why the diary was destroyed when the horcrux was destroyed? Have you not wondered why destroying the horcrux requires the destruction of its container? It requires destruction to make, and it requires destruction to unmake. That is how the balance of magic is kept. I do not recommend handing over this wand to the Muggle authorities.”

“It will destroy the horcrux.”

“It will destroy you.” 

“Why did it affect you so much?” Harry asked curiously. Voldemort had not felt the others in a long time. Why was he sensitive to the horcrux in Harry? 

“I am affected by your doings,” Voldemort muttered. “You gave me blood.”

“Forcibly taken,” Harry remembered, thinking back to the horror of the graveyard and Wormtail’s chanting. 

“How could it have been forcibly taken when you had accepted a part of me as yours?” Voldemort asked, shaking his head. “I made a grave error, as did Dumbledore. The prophecy had unravelled when you took me as yours that night, though you were only a child. There was potent magic that night. The Killing Curse, my long abstinence, the betrayal of the secret keeper, Dumbledore’s powerful charms of protection, your mother’s sacrifice, Severus’s grief, my spell to make the horcrux - all of that fused into magic of catalysmic proportions, and then I fell, and I was still cognisant and powerful enough to draw my broken soul back to me, but it had been taken already, by the only other beating heart in that room, by you. I did nothing to prevent that, though I could have. It was perhaps the folly of a split-second decision. I cannot say that I understand, but amidst my fury and fear, I found you beautiful and holy, standing there, watching me unravel, my soul strangely pure as it enveloped you, as it healed the bleeding scar from the curse.”

That sounded delusional. Maybe the pain and the potent consequences of that failure had made Voldemort hallucinate, had made him see things that hadn’t been there. Why would a baby, who had just lost his parents both, try to draw in their murderer’s soul? 

“Magic is inexplicable,” Voldemort said tiredly. “As an acid and base neutralise to make salt and water, perhaps all the emotions in that room neutralised each other to leave us as we are now.” 

Emotions. The strongest emotion that night had been love, Lily’s love. Harry’s eyes widened as he thought about the implications of that. Blood and love had sufficed to keep him safe for a long time. Blood and love, to hear Dumbledore explain it, were intertwined. Petunia had Lily’s blood. Lily had loved Harry. So Petunia’s home would keep Harry safe. 

——  
He walked along the Seine, watching the little man-made islands in the middle of the waters, watching the little boats dotting the river, watching the automobiles on the many bridges spanning to connect the two banks. 

Occasionally, he cast little spells to test his new wand. Everything came easier to him with that branch of olive. Each spell left him calmer, instead of winding him with adrenaline. Snape had commented that he looked perpetually high. Snape had been perplexed by how easily Harry had taken to his new wand. Moody, when he had heard of it, had simply congratulated Harry on becoming a wizard again. Harry had not felt unmanned all those days when he had been deprived of a wand, truly. He wondered if that was normal. 

He had decided to remain in Paris until Voldemort recovered. Voldemort had not naysaid him, so Harry thought that it was more welcome than begrudging consent. 

Snape had looked at him askance when Harry announced his intention to stay awhile, but had not commented further. Moody thought it had something to do with the wand reawakening Harry’s dormant saviour tendencies.

He had gone to Draco Malfoy’s wife’s parlour. Many exiles, including Moody, were regulars at her card games. Etienne, Malfoy’s wife, was a beautiful creature of abandon and indulgence, blond of hair and blue of eyes, ensconced in her manse at Versailles, not unlike how another woman had once been, before the French had taken her to the guillotine. There was a large photograph in her parlour of the young family, with a pale and determined looking Draco, holding protectively a beautiful baby, and Etienne with her dainty Japanese fan artfully arranged beside them. She took quite the fancy to Harry, pressing him to eat more cake. Harry was glad that her husband was not there to see it. Snape scoffed disdainfully at the attention Harry received. That was par for the course, so Harry did not find it in himself to get riled up over Snape’s antics. 

“Monsieur Potter!” she exclaimed, as he stepped into her parlour again, with flowers for her. 

“Mme Malfoy,” he said politely, bending to let her kiss his cheeks in her French fashion, though it made him uncomfortable, especially as Snape coughed none too discreetly beside him.

“Pour toi!” she said daintily, pressing something into his hands. It was a scroll, tightly furled. For an instant, ridiculously, Harry thought she had given him a note asking for a secret assignation. Then Snape took it from him, and they huddled together to open and read it. It was a familiar, loopy scrawl. 

It stated, “Caesar’s time.” 

“What does that mean?” Harry asked Snape, as they paced together on the large and airy balcony of Snape’s quarters in Montmartre. 

“Let me think, Potter!” Snape muttered. “Cease your chatter! Pray, go put on a pot of tea and bring me a cup.” 

Thus told off, Harry sulked and retreated. Later, once Snape had come with more geniality, they still made no progress. Snape speculated it meant the Ides of March, Harry speculated that it meant the day Caesar had been crowned. Caesar had many significant dates associated with him. What had Dumbledore meant? 

“Should we tell him?” Harry wondered. 

“We should wait,” Snape said firmly. “If we receive any more messages, we should take the matter to Lucius. The Dark Lord obsesses, and twice as much if it is to do with Albus. Best let him recover. If it comes to war, we need him at the height of his powers. Fretting shall not accomplish that.” 

——

Harry looked around to take in the decor of Voldemort’s room, as they lay in bed together. Voldemort had recovered enough to hold conversations, to complain about his healers forbidding the consumption of truffles and mushrooms, to press many kisses to Harry’s chest in between long, exhausted bouts of sleep. 

There were nude statues of marble and bronze in many places, watching them with prurient looks of interest.

“Is Augustus around?” Harry asked, curiously. Hadn’t Voldemort compared his chest to that dead man’s? 

“I should take you to Turkey,” Voldemort murmured. “He is the one in the corner, in the alcove above the piano. I like serenading him when I play.”

As odd as it seemed to Harry that Voldemort serenaded statues, he was curious enough to sit up and look at the statue. It was that of a stately looking man, very handsome and young. Harry doubted he looked anything like that, that his chest resembled Augustus’s, but he was quite content to let Voldemort keep his delusions, if that meant Voldemort continued to be taken with Harry’s chest.

There were many paintings of bucolic French and Italian countrysides. The bed was large and draped in periwinkle blue sheets of fine cotton. There were some pieces of furniture, a writing desk and a piano. On the writing desk was a pink teacup. On the fine keys of the piano was draped Harry’s ugly tartan jumper. That made Harry’s heart leap, and he pressed an impulsive kiss to Voldemort’s forehead. 

“Cure me,” Voldemort demanded then, his voice sounding stronger than it had in the previous days. Pleased by his recovery, Harry kissed him again. “Take off your clothes, and come on me. Fountain of life is the best palliative.”

“A fountain of come?” Harry asked, shocked and amused. Sometimes, Voldemort could be crass. Harry never knew when he was crass in earnest, as opposed to being crass to shock Harry’s sensibilities.

“Indulge me,” Voldemort coaxed him, and the rain outside intensified as Voldemort’s eyes took on a distinct tinge of lust. “Open my robes, spread my legs, straddle me, wank for me, and then shoot your come all over me.”

“All over you?” Harry asked thickly, desire inflaming him. He drew his fingers across Voldemort’s mouth, across Voldemort’s eyelids, across Voldemort’s cheeks, and asked again, “All over you?” 

Voldemort held his gaze boldly and whispered, “Leave me a mess.”

Oh! Harry hastily shoved away Voldemort’s thin robes, with far less delicacy than the healers who came to examine him. He spread Voldemort’s legs using more strength than was necessary, exulting in Voldemort’s sharp inhale. He ran his hands roughly up and down Voldemort’s body, delighted by how subject Voldemort was to his touches, to his attention, brought low by the illness. 

“Take off your clothes,” Voldemort demanded.

“No,” Harry said firmly, straddling him. “I shan’t. I am going to come on you.” So saying, he fished out his cock, still staying fully clad, and began to wank leisurely. The look of greed, of desire, of appreciation on Voldemort’s face made Harry bolder still, and he drew his cock in shameless lines across Voldemort’s mouth, watching the preejaculate paint those parched lips. Voldemort closed his eyes and licked a broad stripe across, catching the drops with his tongue, as if they were fine honey. It made Harry curse and he sped up his strokes, his grip brutal on himself, as he rode his fist to completion, to shooting his come all over Voldemort, just as he had promised. 

Then he fell upon the prone man, and licked every drop up, interspersing that with long, leisurely kisses that Voldemort easily yielded to. Later, as they lay there, with Harry splayed across Voldemort, with Voldemort’s fingers playing a lazy staccato on Harry’s sweat-slick skin, Harry was curious again.

“Can I ask you something?” 

“I promise not to stop wearing periwinkle if you ask,” Voldemort offered. 

Well, that was a nice offer. Harry grinned, feeling less uncomfortable, and asked, “Did you have a great deal of sex before?”   
 “Life and virility are interlinked, Harry,” Voldemort said loftily. “Spells such as those of protection that Dumbledore casts, or such as those of permanence that I cast, require almost complete celibacy. Great magic is born of great sacrifices.” 

Harry remembered Snape’s conviction that Voldemort had not slept with Abraxas, or with Regulus. Now it made sense. Now it made sense why Dumbledore carried on so with his practice of denial despite how much he adored Minerva. 

Harry had had sex with Voldemort though. It had been better than haggis. Why had Voldemort agreed? Was it because it wasn’t full-on fucking? Harry wondered if certain acts counted less than the others, in the eyes of magic. He imagined Hermione’s aghast face when she heard that having sex reduced the chances to make great magic. She would wear sackclothes and foreswear Ron for the rest of their lives! There was a tight ball of unhappiness and anger in his chest as he thought of her, as he thought of how she had managed to warn him before being taken captive. 

“Why do you have sex with me then?” Harry asked, emboldened by Voldemort’s willingness to answer, wanting to cease thinking of those he had lost. 

“I am tired of the rain.” 

\--


	8. Ship of State (Rubicon)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Dumbledore crosses a sea, in which Harry learns a new word, in which Voldemort believes in alchemy.

“You are dressed differently,” Harry remarked, as he watched Voldemort get ready. The robes were of silk, of a pleasing olive green.

“I am off to Lyons!” Voldemort announced cheerfully. “You may come with me, if you wish. Have you seen the city?”

Lyon. Harry had heard of the old capital of the Gauls, of the silk, of the bloody Catholic-Protestant massacres. Hermione had talked a great deal about its architecture. 

“You are going to see the city?” Harry asked curiously. Voldemort did not seem the touristy type. 

“I have an errand,” Voldemort explained away, without explaining. Harry shrugged and nodded. He had nothing pressing to do.

They parted at the base of the Fourviere, the hill that prays, the site of the old Roman capital. 

“The Golden Virgin is a must-see,” Voldemort said, as he set off and away on his errand. 

So Harry went to see the Virgin in her large basilica, and tried his hand at praying like the hundreds of pilgrims around. He knelt uncomfortably, and prayed for Ron and Hermione, for Dumbledore, for Britain. He found himself withdrawing further away from the whispered Ave Marias, and in the silence of his head there was only prayer. He was not sure if he was doing it right. Petunia had not taken him to church. When his knees hurt, he stumbled up and out of the basilica, taking in the beautiful windows and the many statues with awe.

He went down the hill to the Bourse. As he had seen was typical in Paris and in Provence, and in Calais, the open air bazaar held a good deal of both wizarding and Muggle businesses. He had initially wondered about this, and had asked Snape. Snape had said that it was Voldemort’s policy of integration, to ensure that nationalism glued the wizards and the Muggles of a country together, so that a few would not be overwhelmed and decimated by the many, as had happened in Britain. The only way, Snape had said with conviction, to avoid an us versus them scenario, was to ensure integration through a common national heritage. 

Was it inevitable, Harry wondered? Hiding away had served the wizards for centuries. Muggle technology, as they had seen in Britain, had advanced rapidly, and how long could they hide away from the advanced detection and tracking systems the Muggles had invented?

Every wizarding conclave across the world had the same pressing question to find an answer to. After what had happened in Britain, how were they to ensure continuity of their lives, of their ways? 

The Statute of Secrecy forbade intermixing, forbade exposing magic to the Muggles. However, Fudge had flouted it for votes. Here, Voldemort had broken it systematically to pursue his policy of integration, earning exceptional relaxations of the international law through his puppet votes in the many European governments. 

Harry found some of Voldemort’s policies worrying. Voldemort was trying to unify the schooling system, to integrate healthcare and education across the wizarding and the Muggle worlds into a single government service. How would training healers and doctors across disciplines work in practice? There was a great deal of fundamental research ongoing. If Hermione had been here, she would have been excited as a child on Christmas day. Voldemort’s firm belief, supported by some preliminary research, pointed to magic being a science of sorts, based on sound principles, removed from mere intuition and innate ability. The why and the how could be explained, according to this school of thought. Harry found that hard to believe; everything he had learned about the magical world had required surrendering to blind faith and intuition, to innate aptitude. There was another school of thought that spoke of genetic mutations. Harry thought he was more likely to fall in that line of reasoning. As it stood though, he was not a researcher, nor a philosopher. He was content to walk the Bourse, peeking into the shops at whim, haggling with a few shopkeepers when he felt the need for company. 

Then he saw a shop that intrigued him. La dernière barrière had a shopfront sleekly adorned in black, lush silks. There were a few lights shining strategically on their wares. Harry hesitated at the threshold, before taking a deep breath and entering. 

“Bon jour!” a cheerful, old man, no kin to Snape’s wandmaker in Versailles, greeted Harry. 

Harry let himself take a few moments to look around. Some of the wares frightened him. Some seemed dangerous. Others looked ridiculous. There were a few, though, that caught his interest.

“A rule of thumb, monsieur, is to pick only what takes your fancy.” 

“I am buying for someone else,” Harry admitted. “I don’t know what he likes.”

“The rule then is still to buy what takes your fancy,” the old man assured him. “That way, even if he doesn’t like it, you will.”

Harry made his purchases and thanked the man. He left the shop, only to bump into Moody. Moody had a pastry in his hand, and had been limping along downhill. 

“Hi!” Harry greeted him, falling in step with him.

“The Harry Potter allowance, is it?” Moody asked acerbically. 

Harry had found money to be a tricky issue. Snape had warned him that the other refugees were not under Voldemort’s personal protection, as Harry was. They had to find jobs, to make a living, as soon as the thirty days of grace of food and boarding they had at Calais’s large refugee settlements were over. Harry did not have to work. He had his house in Provence, and he had Snape bringing him money every few weeks. He was frugal by nature, and had little to spend on apart from his basic necessities, so he had not been yet in financially difficult straits. 

“Is there anything I can try to help with?” he asked Moody, not wishing to discuss the Harry Potter allowance.

Moody shook his head and limped off. Harry sighed and picked his way through the markets until he reached the basilica again. 

He would have to wait for Voldemort to return from his errand. He saw many women walking towards the huge graveyards, with candles in their hands. He followed them, deciding to amble along, and to find some quiet away from the bustling market, in the large swathes of green dotted by stone angels and crosses, and marble slabs of commemoration. He puttered along, from the Muggle side to the quieter Wizarding side, where there were no religious markers. Grief and mourning had the same significance in both traditions, and perhaps even the same methods and meanings to rites of commemoration. Death transcended all barriers. There, Harry then saw Voldemort, standing before a large slab of marble with an ornate headstone, and there were jonquils dotting the green about the grave. When Voldemort saw Harry, he beckoned forward.

“My partner’s grave,” Voldemort explained fondly. “Lyons was his favourite place. He paid for the renovations of the church required after the great war. I prefer Spain, but it would have been impolite to inter him there just so that I could visit Spain regularly under that pretext.” 

“Do you come often?” 

“You have to go to the dead, Harry. They don’t visit you.” 

Harry thought of Godric’s Hollow. Hermione had taken him there once, and he had not found in him the heart to return, to see those graves again. Poor, dear Sirius had no grave. 

“You must have been close.” 

“We were friends,” Voldemort explained, as if claiming to have a friend was a normal state of being for him. “Later, our friendship faded and we were allied by our cause. It may sound odd to you, since you mix friendships and causes, since so much of what you are is defined by those you love. It worked differently for me, and for him. We vacationed together, travelled together, strategised together, and we managed to keep our equilibrium despite our conflicting temperaments. Many of my later allies attempted to sway me from this arrangement, since they thought power shared was power diluted. I did not agree. If I was to rule over countries, could I be present to watch what happened in each pub and shack? I needed an administration. He was better at that sort of drudgery than I ever could be. I needed him.”

“Were you-?” Harry did not know how to ask that question politely. 

“We could not have been as we were sans affection, sans attraction,” Voldemort admitted. “At the same time, I valued my celibacy, and he valued his reputation. Apart from incidents when we were out of senses on drink or drugs, we hadn’t ventured into those waters.“ His cheerfulness waned as he continued, “I was there to watch him die. I eased his passing. The loneliness I had left behind when I first met him at Hogwarts returned, and it was a less pleasing companion to live with than he had been.”

Harry wondered about his life, about Ron and Hermione, and the Weasleys at the Burrow, and how they had taken him in, and how he had not been lonely afterwards. Now, though, now he had only himself. The olive wand in his hand turned warm then, as if to reassure him of company. Was that the company of his own magic, or of the horcrux? Had the lines of distinction between the two become irrevocably blurred? 

When they returned to Paris, Snape and Lucius Malfoy were waiting for Voldemort, along with several other official looking wizards. Snape looked nonplussed by Harry’s presence, but Voldemort swept across.

“A message from Albus Dumbledore,” Lucius announced, and Harry’s heart was gripped by fear and expectation. 

“Finally,” Voldemort muttered, and took the scroll from Lucius. “The Old Man and the Sea.” His eyes turned pensive. “Summon the Muggle government representatives to the European Union, and to the United Nations. I also want a meeting with Francois Charpentier and with Bernadine Guerin.” Lucius nodded and waddled away. “And Lucius, send out the Rubicon codes to Calais.” 

“My lord-”

“Send out the codes. Let me know if we receive further news.” 

Voldemort left the hall for his meetings. Snape came to Harry and glared. 

“You seduced him too late!” he accused. 

“I don’t really think it would have worked,” Harry said. “What is the Rubicon code?”

“To fortify the battlements and walls on the coastline, to evacuate the civilians from the regions of high risk.” 

“High risk of?” 

“A coastal invasion,” Snape said. “Caesar crossed the Rubicon to overthrow the Senate. If the Muggle government in Britain crosses the Channel and defies French sovereignty, we have a war on our hands. The Dark Lord has been prepared for this for a while, perhaps Fudge’s election campaign began.”

“Why did Dumbledore send word?” 

“I wonder.” Snape looked grim. “I hope it is not what I fear.” 

And seeing Snape’s grave expression, Harry realised what he feared. “What if he is leading refugees across, like Moody did?”

“Albus will not send word to the Dark Lord unless he had refugees with him,” Snape admitted. “He has a strong base of support in other countries to the north. Why would he make for France unless there was dire need? It must be more than a mere evacuation of Hogwarts.” 

Harry wondered if Snape had factored in the logistical effects of a long siege. Hogwarts had been cut off from the rest of the world for more than seventeen months. Fudge had given away the existence of Hogwarts five months ago. The Muggle government must have been trying to actively track the hideaway after that. Did Dumbledore’s supply chains continue unaffected? 

Voldemort had not looked surprised. Even though he professed to have no stake in the matters across the Channel, he must have still spies there. Dumbledore’s note had not caught him entirely unaware. Why? Had Moody’s testimony about Fudge’s betrayal led to that prediction? 

“I should go to Calais,” Harry said. “If he is coming, we should be there.” 

“At least you have a wand now,” Snape grumbled. “Knowing how to wield it would have been more helpful, but one must be thankful for the small mercies.” 

“My foolish wand-waving has worked for me before,” Harry assured him, grinning at the expression of amusement that flashed across Snape’s features before settling back into his customary frown of displeasure reserved for Harry. 

“Hardly a ringing endorsement of confidence in your skills,” Snape said. Then he relented, and said, “The wand is interesting.”

Harry brought it to Snape’s hand. Snape turned it over, carefully, and said with a deep exhale, “I remember this magic from somewhere. Perhaps it is the wandmaker’s. It is more familiar, though, a memory of pain borne with pride.” His eyes darkened. “Perhaps-” His gaze flicked to Harry’s scar in trepidation. He shook his head and said, “Here, take it. Refrain from recklessness.”

“Won’t you be there?” Harry asked, suddenly feeling alone. 

“I have been assigned to work with Bella,” Snape said, with a deep, soulful sigh. “She is worse than you, in seeking danger. The Dark Lord prefers someone less reckless to work with her on the field.”

“Carnage is bad PR?” 

“That, and he likes her alive.” 

——

He watched the white cliffs of Dover from Calais. Gulls soared overhead, the waters were calm, and all was at peace. 

Here, in the old city, there was still debris from the great battle in 1945, from when the German forces had rained bullets from their heavy fortifications upon the cliffs on the boats containing Allied forces. Later, the Allies had bombed the city, and had laid it to waste. 

A few miles from here had been the miracle of Dunkirk, and Churchill had said that they would fight on the beaches of France, and that had been a disaster, and they had been saved by chance. Churchill had also said, after the miracle, that no war was won by evacuation.

Now they were waiting for refugees. Harry, from his position upon the Tour de Guet, looked back at Place d’Armes, the heart of the old city. There were French Aurors milling about in the square, looking solemn and prepared. 

In Coquelles, the Eurotunnel was being monitored closely. There were helicopters on standby, from the Muggle government. Harry waited, with the rest of them, with his eyes glued to the binoculars he had acquired from the flea market. 

Then Harry saw it. Dark airplanes dotted the skies, flying low, across the Channel, in an offensive formation. They were hunters, waiting for their prey impatiently, hovering aft and to, and Harry wondered if this had been how London had been bombed by the Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain. The name in the history textbooks sounded cool: The Blitz. This was not cool. This was frightening. He gripped the rails of the tower and watched, as they dove and greeted the calm sea with conflagrations. What were they bombing? A ship? 

And then, Harry saw. 

Towards Calais, towards freedom and France, there headed many hundreds of boats, some no better than crude dinghies, all poorly equipped, manned by tired or wounded men, with faces frightened and desperate. There were no women. Where were the women and the children? Were they in the middle of the contingent? 

A miracle had happened once at Calais. Harry prayed, dearly, that the Golden Virgin in the basilica would give them another. He watched, crying quietly, as the dive bombers picked off boats one by one, systematically. 

The French Aurors did nothing. The French aircraft on standby did nothing. International relations. They had to wait until the boats crossed over to their waters. The United Nations had not ratified intervention based on a humanitarian crisis. 

As Harry watched, as boats were picked off as flies, as the placid waters turned turbulent from the bombs and the debris, from the limbs askew littering the surface and the floating corpses, a gale blew west, rattling the rails under Harry’s palms, throwing the airplanes off course, capsizing many of the boats. 

And the waters parted. 

Harry heard yelling and shouted orders, he watched the airplanes trying to get their bearings, he watched the tired men in the boats trying to hold the stern against the choppy waters. At the port of Calais, upon the French flagpole, a figure in black raised a new flag - that of the United Nations. The ratification for intervention had finally arrived. The French Aurors and the French aircraft sluiced across the waters, lifting men out of the boats, out to safety. The attacking dive-bombers did not pursue them - they clearly did not desire war. They retreated to bomb closer to Dover, where the waters had slid open to leave a corridor on the sea-floor, through which Harry could see hundreds of women and children on foot walking towards France, a great exodus, and Dumbledore led them. Harry’s heart was clenched tight in his chest as he saw Dumbledore’s careworn face and rail-thin figure. His bright, blue eyes were sunken deep in their sockets, telling a tale of deprivation and hopelessness, but there was still in him fortitude unmatched as he led his people forward. His shield charms were scant protection against the dive-bombers, but he held them as best as he could. They were starting to spray their magic-containing ions and Harry saw the despair on Dumbledore’s face as his charms fell, as his magic withered away, as they were left sitting ducks on the seafloor to be slaughtered. 

Harry rushed down the stairs of the tower, towards the harbour, where there were now rescued refugees milling about, crying, in despair, and panicked despite the attempts of the French officials to calm down. 

“Harry!” exclaimed a voice. 

It was Dean, though Harry barely could recognise him. 

“It is all right!” Dean shouted, and people listened to him. “Harry is here. Harry Potter is here!” 

So he was Harry Potter once again, beacon of their hope, and his desertion to France was forgotten for the moment, as they flocked to him. He listened to the orders from the French Aurors, translated those into English, and they were shepherded into separate lines for immunisation, for quarantine, for immigration, and for medical aid. 

Harry was relieved and grateful to have been of some use, and he made his way to the harbour. Snape was standing there, keeping a wary eye on an impatient Bellatrix. 

“They have brought in their larger bombers,” Snape muttered, holding his binoculars to his eyes. “The magic containing ions are being dispersed still. I had thought Albus would have taken that into consideration!”

Harry gripped him by the shoulder and said nothing. At least, many had been saved. Was more than a miracle answered by prayer? Dumbledore had done his best. What more could a man do?

Then it stormed, with dark clouds from the mainland filling up the skies fast and thundering down rain, obscuring visibility and throwing the navigation systems off track. Lightning flashed across the skies, ominous, and peals of thunder followed. The French side pulled back their aircraft. 

Snape laughed weakly, gripped Harry’s arm, and said in a hoarse, emotion-stricken voice, “I must admit that his propensity to carry the rain around had not seemed handy before.” 

I am tired of the rain, Voldemort had said. He had had sex with Harry to stop the rain. Great magic was built of great sacrifices, he had told Harry. Harry turned back. There, he saw a man alone upon the watchtower he had left. 

Snape rushed forward, just as Dumbledore reached the harbour, and he was there to catch Dumbledore as the old man collapsed. 

Harry walked back, towards the tower. He climbed the stairs in circles, and he reached the top, where Voldemort was seated on the floor, heaving in exhaustion. 

Harry raised his wand of olive and knelt before the man. 

“Harry-”

“Hush,” Harry whispered, and kissed him fiercely, and placed his wand between them, against Voldemort’s heaving chest, and spoke.

“Be well.”

Voldemort laughed softly and kissed him again, and his hands were shaking convulsively as he dragged up Harry’s jumper. 

“I must have you. I can’t-”

“Have me,” Harry said, and he felt neither the fear of newness nor the trepidation of physical harm. Blood, magic, soul - it seemed meet then to share this too. 

And Voldemort had him. Their clothes were rent by their hands grasping, on their skin rose bruises red as they marked each other with teeth and nail as they had once marked each other by magic old, Voldemort caught each of Harry’s gasps with kisses soft and deep, his hands came to grip Harry’s waist tight, and when he moved deep in Harry, his voice breaking on Harry’s name, the unrelenting rains gentled. 

“Can I come in you? I am not sure about the protocol.” 

Was it purely Harry’s imagination or did Voldemort sound mortified? He shook his head and clutched the man to him. 

“Inside,” he asked. “You have always belonged inside me.”

Voldemort’s answer was a gasp that broke into a sob, and they fell together, and Harry’s wand of olive sent magic gentle to warm their cooling bodies. 

As they lay there, trying to calm their breathing, luxuriating in the presence and the intimacy, sunlight filtered through the high windows upon them, and they heard the rejoicing cries outside as the last of the exodus crossed to Calais. 

——

“My dear, dear boy!” Dumbledore said, beaming at Harry, embracing him gently, and then stepping back to take him in. 

“A new wand, for a new life,” Dumbledore wondered, his fingers skirting across Harry’s wand. 

“Snape tells the story more dramatically,” Harry offered. “In his rendition, the wand-maker is demented, I am a helpless maiden, and Snape is the noble hero.” 

“Severus is precious,” Dumbledore said, chuckling. 

Harry did not ask about Minerva. As Moody had said, if someone was not present, if someone had not made it, then asking would only yield more grief. He had not asked about Ron or Hermione either. He had seen George, shell-shocked and rail-thin, in Dean’s company. He had to go visit them. Not yet. He had been asked to give them time to become used to their new surroundings. Many of them, according to Lucius Malfoy’s assessment, suffered from post-traumatic stress. 

“Ah, there you are!” Dumbledore said, looking over Harry’s shoulder. 

“Some of us work,” Voldemort said imperiously, walking past Harry to the bow window and enthroning himself upon it with his usual elan. “We cannot all be as you, eating lemon drops and embracing young men.” 

“I must eat all I can now,” Dumbledore rejoined. “There are no lemon-drops in the United States.” 

“Dear me, dear me, and here I had thought you would be off to Russia.”

“I am an old man,” Dumbledore said sadly, brushing his hand over Harry’s unruly hair, making Harry unspeakably upset. “Florida is warm and will let an old man die in peace. There is no war left in me.”

“I heard that Sybill made a prophecy,” Voldemort said then, looking very serious. 

“She died in the crossing,” Dumbledore said, with a quiet sigh of grief. “Many did. Yes, she made a prophecy, about a man wielding olive, cloaked in magic bought with death. There would be conciliation, she prophesised.”’

Voldemort did not reply. 

“One must wonder, as one always must, about how much a seer’s wishes influences the prophecy. Sybill wanted conciliation, she desired to return home to-” Dumbledore hesitated, took a deep breath, and said, “She desired to return to Hogwarts.” 

“Aerial photography shows rubble,” Voldemort said quietly. “There will be no return, Dumbledore, not in Harry’s lifetime.” He delicately fingered the fraying hem of his sleeve and said in an even tone, “Harry will be standing for the nomination to the United Nations Council next year, when the position becomes vacant.” 

Harry blinked at that, and looked at Dumbledore. There was a strained smile on Dumbledore’s face as he said, “I commend you on the choice. Harry is an excellent candidate for the position. He has the heart to help, to forgive, to conciliate. We need that in the years to come.”

“The United Nations is usually in a bind, when it comes to matters of this nature. Only look at Israel and Palestine, at India and Pakistan, at the many crises in Africa and in the Middle East.” Voldemort shook his head. “However, legitimacy is important.” 

There was a knock on the door. Voldemort rose to his feet and said, “I must be off. I wish you a peaceful death in Florida.” 

“I wish you peace,” Dumbledore said equitably. 

When Voldemort left, Dumbledore’s shoulders caved in and he sighed. 

“I don’t want you to leave,” Harry said quietly. 

“There is nothing left, Harry,” Dumbledore told him, and the sadness in his eyes made Harry want to go to Britain and wreak revenge. “I have done all that I can. Now I will do what is left in my power. I will die.” 

“You will leave me then?” Harry asked, furious and sad. “You will leave Snape.”

“I will leave my wand with Severus.” Dumbledore cupped Harry’s face. “My dear boy. Harry, I had meant to leave you what I owned, but all I came with is the clothes on my back. I am not unhappy. I had the chance to see you. All I can leave you with, now, is only my love, and my fondest wishes.” 

——

“Hello there,” Harry greeted Voldemort as he entered the bedroom and closed the double-doors behind him. 

Voldemort rubbed his tired eyes, pushed back his chair, rose from his desk where he had been reading, and walked to Harry. 

“Snape sent him off. I couldn’t find it in me,” Harry admitted, taking off his jeans and jumper, smiling faintly when he saw the appraising look Voldemort had for Harry’s chest. 

“I bought something in Lyons, while you were at the cemetery,” Harry continued, walking to the chest of drawers and extracting his parcel. 

“At the bazaar? They are all thieves and frauds! I hope they did not swindle you.” 

“It matches the olive green of the robes you wore that day,” Harry pressed on, not letting Voldemort’s interruption matter. “Take off your clothes. I want to see how it looks on you.”

Voldemort looked thrown off for a moment, before he recouped. He stripped with agility, down to his periwinkle drawers, and then he fumbled with the ties. 

“I can help,” Harry said, and cast an Evanesco, leaving his prey nude before his eyes. “You are a sight.” 

Voldemort did not reply, looking away. He walked to the bed, his gait less graceful than usual, and the awkwardness touched Harry. He joined Voldemort, placed his hand warm on the man’s chest, stroked to ease his breathing, and then asked, “Over my lap. I want your arse up.”

He felt hardness wet against his thigh, seeking the sheets, as Voldemort obeyed without a word. He stroked the strong, lean back and pressed kisses slow to the skin. Then he extracted his purchase from the parcel. The marble balls were from India, a dark green that starkly contrasted against the pale skin he placed it on. They were linked by tight ropes of mulberry silk, and ranged in size. He parted Voldemort’s cheeks and spat on the wrinkled hole. Voldemort jerked beneath him. 

“I will leave you a mess,” Harry promised, spreading the saliva with his fingers. He circled the first ball around the rim and laughed softly as the body in his hands keened and reached up to draw in sensation. 

“You should see yourself like this. Bare, arse up in offering, humping the sheets shamelessly, keening and moaning in want. Here, take it. Take what you need.” Harry pushed in the first one, and he almost came as the flesh clutched tight and swallowed it whole. 

“Harry!” 

“No, no, we aren’t done. I want to stuff you until you can’t take any more. The next time we do this, I want you to count for me. Look at you, thrusting back. Maybe you will be lost in your sensations that you will miss the count. Maybe then I will make you wait, until you make wild promises and confess your fantasies.”

He stopped, panting. Voldemort had lost words. He was only a writhing mass of needful cries. Harry turned him over and took him in his mouth, hoping that his inexperience would not matter too much. He was fortunate that Voldemort seemed to be well beyond articulation, reduced to rutting into Harry’s mouth with little control, screaming as Harry pulled out the marbles swift, and when he came, Harry had not heard music sweeter than his broken cry of Harry’s name. 

“I have never-” 

Harry cut him off by lifting his shaking legs to wind about Harry’s waist. Voldemort’s eyes, blown wide in satiation, flared further as he realised Harry’s intent. 

“I will fuck you now,” Harry said. “I will fill you with my come. Then I will watch it leak out of you, and scoop it back in. Then I will ask you to hold my come in you when I bite and pinch, and kiss and lick your hole. You see, I want you to be mine, all the time, always ready to fuck me when I ask, always willing to bend over and grab your ankles to offer me your arse.”

Voldemort looked scandalised by Harry’s filthy words. 

“You want it too. Will you stop me if I bend you over my lap again and plug you? You told me once that I stood enveloped by your soul, that I took your soul as mine, that it seemed the right way of things. I want you to admit that you desire to surrender now, just as you chose to surrender your soul to me then. I kept your soul safe, in me. Let me now keep you. Let me give you what you crave.” 

Voldemort shook his head fervently and reared down, to impale himself on Harry’s cock. 

“I love you,” Harry admitted. “I want you, to keep you safe, to give you what you need, to see that you have your every whim and want."

Voldemort’s eyes widened at that, and he gasped as Harry began fucking him, with strokes deep and lacking rhythm. He threw his head back, and to Harry’s eyes, he was a god in cast gold as the blazing sun outside cast its full rays upon his sweat-slick body. 

Later, Voldemort said hoarsely, after Harry kissed him with love, “You are overwhelming.” 

“I saw this a little late,” Harry said apologetically, as he watched Voldemort stretch his limbs and bask in the sunlight. 

Did it matter that love came to Voldemort only because of the potent mixture of magic and blood, once at Godric’s Hollow and later in the graveyard? Did it matter? The love that was in Harry’s blood was in Voldemort’s blood too. 

“Does it matter how it came to be? Alchemy leaves base metals turned to gold. Is an alchemy of the heart that far-fetched?”

“I love you,” Harry said again, bashfully. “I don’t know how it came to be. I am glad it did.” 

——

The tenth anniversary of the great exodus was commemorated at Calais. Harry stood with Snape, watching the cliffs of Dover. 

The United Nations and the consortium of wizarding republics were still in heated discussions with the Muggle government in Britain. There were talks of allocating a reserved area in some of the woods near Derbyshire for resettling wizarding folk. 

The question had arisen again and again, in many parts of the world, as both Muggles and wizards grappled with the issues of identity and acceptance, of co-existence. Integration would not be easy, and there were many predictions for bloodshed in the coming years. Media and watchdog organisations exhorted the world to follow continental Europe’s policy of active integration. 

Harry had vacated his position on the United Nations Council after eight years of service. The constant stalemate had wearied him. He had felt that he was getting nowhere. His tenure had been a success, according to the media and popular opinion, and he was highly esteemed by some for his act of negotiating compensation with the British government for the victims and their survivors, for his efforts to track down the missing whose fates were unknown still. 

The mainstream media, from the Time magazine to Le Monde, from the Witch Weekly to the Clarion of Magic, spoke positively of Harry’s work. Some called him the Conciliator, just as they called Voldemort the Alchemist, for having brought an integrated Europe, with his sweeping reforms to both the Muggle and the Magical governments across the continent. Privately, Harry considered Voldemort’s achievement more impressive. 

Dumbledore had written occasional letters from Florida, to Harry and to Snape. The letters had ceased five months ago. They had not discussed that. It hurt to speak of what must have been the reason for the letters that did not come any more. 

Dean had set up a school for disabled kids. Harry helped out occasionally, when he was in Calais. 

Moody had died in his sleep, refuting Voldemort’s prediction that he would die in some street-brawl. He had been buried in Calais, next to the graves of those that had died before, succumbing to wounds after they had reached safety, others who had died during the exodus, and during Moody’s daring arrival in France. 

“It doesn’t seem unlikely that they will welcome us back,” Snape said. “The Dark Lord’s economic prosperity in Europe can coax Britain into compromises. How long can they stay out of the Continent, when their imports and exports are so heavily affected by relations with Europe? Britain cannot sustain itself. Trade embargoes hurt, as we saw in Cuba and in Iran.”

After the gathered had dispersed, Snape sighed and asked, “How are matters with you? Is he content with your retirement?”

Harry smiled. There was grey in his hair, premature but earned from long nights of stress in the United Nations. The job had exhausted him. The last two years had been quiet and soft, by comparison. Voldemort had not protested or discouraged Harry’s decision to leave. He had said, wryly, that he had enough to keep Harry in a manner he was accustomed to, with all the little luxuries he liked. So, with his blessing to become a kept man, Harry cheerfully resigned and came home to Provence. He kept hens, and had three dogs that gambolled around in excitement when Voldemort came home with pastries from Paris every evening. Voldemort complained a great deal about Harry’s rich cooking adding to his waistline, but Harry could see no traces of that, despite the sheer amounts of haggis they consumed. Harry’s decor had been taken over by splashes of periwinkle and bright red. 

Voldemort had taken him to Turkey. He had waxed eloquent about Augustus of Rome, about the physical attributes of that gorgeous man. He had added the administrative and military accomplishments later, as an afterthought. Harry had not found Augustus interesting, but he could listen for hours on end to his lover's earnest words. 

They did not need umbrellas anymore. 

“He has been in lively spirits,” Harry reported. “I think he likes my cooking.” 

“All the years of quality education we drilled into your head, and you chose to be a house-husband.”

“It suits me very well, thank you,” Harry retorted. “Besides, if I know that if I need a job, I can come to you.”

“I teach, Potter. I mould young minds to refrain from foolish wand-waving. I have no use for a layabout like you.” 

“I knew I can count on you,” Harry beamed, and Snape rolled his eyes. 

——

When he let himself in, and removed the layers and layers of clothing he had bundled up in to go to Calais, he found Voldemort on the sofa, nude, a lovely splash of skin against the olive upholstery. He was playing idly with his cock with one hand, and was conjuring purple butterflies to fly through the rings of a sparkling Uranus with his other hand.

“I see you are in a gay mood,” Harry said, grinning. He hastily removed the rest of his clothes. 

“Quite,” Voldemort said laconically. “Best come and address that.”

“Oh, you are darling,” Harry said softly, coming to him and covering him with his aging body.

Harry woke the next morning with aches in his joints, his body complaining about the sofa. Oh, he was getting too old for that. For all of Voldemort’s incessant complaints about his decrepit bones, he seemed ageless. Harry puttered off to put on the kettle. Some tea would set him right.

He came back to the sofa with two teacups. They were a dashing pair in fine jade. Voldemort had brought them from a trip to Japan.

“I purchased a crop,” Voldemort mentioned, sitting up and stretching. 

“Oh?”

“Yes, I was in Lyons yesterday. It was my partner’s death anniversary. I took the chance to visit your favourite shop-keeper.”

“Did he recognise you?” Harry asked, aghast, scandalised. 

Voldemort was often stopped on the streets of Paris by many who wanted an autograph from the Alchemist of Europe. He would oblige, when the fancy took him, and even pose with them for photographs. Harry never failed to be amused by the little children who followed Voldemort about on the streets in Provence. He was something of a local celebrity to them. Voldemort would threaten to chop them and eat their livers, but they would only watch him with wide eyes and nod seriously, and continue trailing behind him. 

“He recognised me. He gave me a discount!” 

At least, Voldemort was happy about the discount. 

“Enough of the trivia!” Voldemort declared. “Let us break the crop in, shall we? I crave my dashing man to wield it rough and hard, as he pleases.”

“Oh, you are a terrible influence,” Harry muttered, putting aside his breakfast plans and taking his lover into their bedroom. “ On the bed with you.” He flicked the crop gently, lightly against Voldemort’s thighs. “On your back. Spread. More.” He dragged the crop up Voldemort’s cock, and smiled at the ensuing shiver. “I adore you.” He gathered Voldemort’s legs and pressed them into his chest, exposing him. He tapped against the hole that opened to him. “I think I will crop you here. A reminder to please you when you are in Paris alone.” 

Over the years, he had grown better at interpreting Voldemort’s quirks and needs, just as Voldemort had become better at understanding Harry. As he lashed the crop softly against the warm, red flesh, he knew when to gentle and when to pressure, from the light quivers and the loud shudders of the body underneath him. Then he put the crop aside, and put his wet mouth to soothe the hurt. Then, he spread Voldemort’s legs once again, and straddled him, and took his cock deep into Harry.

“It was alchemy all along,” Voldemort whispered, reaching up with his hands to cradle Harry’s face, in a gesture of unbearable tenderness, as Harry rode him. “The bones of my father held only shallowness and malice. The flesh of my servant had only cowardice and fear. It was your blood that turned it all to meaning. Before all of that, my soul had found in you wholeness that had eluded it all its existence. My meaning, my wholeness, my love. Oh, I see now why Gideon thanked his god for the miracle of the dew.”

——

They walked together by the Calanques, their favourite retreat in Provence when they had tired of the house. It was cloudy, and the sea was unusually turbulent that day. 

Voldemort liked this coast better than the Opal Coast. He liked the drama of the inlets and choppy cliffs, the verdant greens, and the high peaks. Sometimes, he would leave Harry on the coast and go diving into Cosquer cave. He had taken Harry with him once, but after Harry had failed to appreciate the Paleolithic history, he had been left behind afterwards to collect sea-shells and eat his picnic in peace on the clean sands. 

Now, Voldemort was looking with poorly concealed looks of yearning at the choppy waters. He wanted to keep Harry company, but he wanted to take a dip in the cold sea too. 

“Go on,” Harry urged him, knowing the petty conflict in his head. “I will watch you.” 

Voldemort beamed at him and set off, saying, “I will buy you ice-cream later.” 

Harry rolled his eyes and dug himself a cosy seat in the sand, and watched the madman’s head bobbing in the waves. Really, who wanted to swim in these frigid waters? It was February. Harry was reminded of the first time he had seen Voldemort swim near Calais. Before that, he had taken Harry through glen and glade, through river and sea, fleeing the Muggle helicopters that had been chasing them. Now, looking at the man, as he swam back, all strong, gleaming sinews and skin, Harry felt fate and destiny speak through the years of his life, leading to this. He extracted his wand of olive and cast an Accio, and Voldemort’s disgruntled expression as he was caught unguarded, hurtling through the waters and the winds to Harry’s arms, was well worth the drama. 

He bent to kiss the man softly, gently, in the rays of the setting sun, and their breathing was quiet against the cries of the winds and the crashing waves, and they were small and insignificant against the cliffs and the sea, but in their hearts had been a truth that had salvaged their world. When Voldemort sighed and enveloped him with limbs long and cold, Harry could only look at him with reverence. 

“Yes?” Voldemort asked, casting a drying charm on himself, and wrapping his body in a periwinkle, woollen robe. 

“Look at you,” Harry said, lacking words more powerful. “Look at the alchemy of our hearts. I am so glad.” 

Voldemort’s curiosity morphed into beatitude, and he nodded. 

“It is not mere gladness. It is Hallelujah.” 

Hallelujah. The Jews had spoken that when their God had blessed them beyond words. Harry wondered if their earnest rejoicing in their land of milk and honey matched his own. It was his word too then. Hallelujah. 

Harry spoke the word once, and kissed the benediction in his arms. 

——

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, and for your patience with my writing. Thank you for being kind to me while I wrote in this fandom. Best wishes. 
> 
> When I embarked on this, I had thought to sketch an exploratory, cautionary narrative. Times and the world have changed in the span of the last few weeks, in ways unexpected. 
> 
> [Catullus 16 ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4472828/chapters/10166102) | [ Connubium ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7889503/chapters/18020923) | [ Ouroboros ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2737937/chapters/6136163) and Republic form a set of four ( fugue, andante, capriccio and a scherzo). 
> 
> If your curiosity is tickled and if you like slower world-building, try the [Eldritch](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/Eldritch) arc. 
> 
> Notes:  
> 1) Atlantis - (Plato) Timaeus  
> 2) The Divided Line - (Plato) Republic  
> 3) The Cave - (Plato) Republic  
> 4) Antigone - (Sophocles) - demands that her brother be honorably buried.  
> 5) The Chariot - (Plato) Republic ["The charioteer of the human soul drives a pair, and secondly one of the horses is noble and of noble breed, but the other quite the opposite in breed and character. Therefore in our case the driving is necessarily difficult and troublesome"]  
> 6) Gyges - (Plato) - A powerful magical artifact that lets the wearer become invisible at wall, in a way granting ultimate freedom from accountability and the concepts of social order or justice.  
> 7) The Sun - (Plato) - The child of goodness, illuminating dark with the light, "As goodness stands in the intelligible realm to intelligence and the things we know, so in the visible realm the sun stands to sight and the things we see."  
> 8) The Ship of State - (Plato) - Examines democracy, majority rule, philosopher kings under the analogy of a ship of sailors and a navigator.  
> 9) Rubicon - (Rome) - Julius Caesar crosses the river to reach Rome, though the Senate had forbidden him to, overthrowing the democracy in Rome and making way for the time of the emperors.  
> 10) And the waters parted - (Leonard Cohen) - paraphrasing the Old Testament - Moses leads the Exodus across the Red Sea.  
> 11) Abstinence and power - juxtaposing the Hindu Naaga Sadhu philosophy (Re: Kumbh Mela) with the Catholic abstinence and virtue principles.  
> 12) The hen leading the chicks across the road (Chapter 7) - Moses leads his weary people from Egypt  
> 13) Lyons - the commercial capital of France in earlier times. Famous for the Bourse, the basilica, and the silk trade.  
> 14) La dernière barrière - The Last barrier (cross-referencing Hogwarts as the last wizarding stronghold in Britain, love as the last mystery that Voldemort does not understand, the body as the last unshared object between Harry and Voldemort)  
> 15) Instead of lengthy expositions, the theme of each of the allegories handpicked from Plato's works is reflected through its chapter, through the actions and thoughts of the characters.  
> 16) The alchemy of the heart - I borrowed heavily and loosely from teachings of Sufi philosophers here.


End file.
